many cases the font, which has often escaped when all the rest of the
building inside and out has been defaced by neglect or destroyed by
restoration. Much destruction followed on the Reformation, and even in
Elizabeth’s reign, in spite of a royal mandate to preserve the old form
of baptism “at the font and not with a bason,” attacks were constantly
made on the fonts, and especially on the font-covers, which makes the
preservation of the _Frieston_ font-cover with a figure of the Virgin
Mary on the top very remarkable. We have in the churchwardens’ accounts
in various places this contemptuous entry:—
“Item. For takynge doune _ye thynge ower the funt_ XIIᵈ.”
Parliamentarian soldiers went to greater lengths and broke up the font
itself in very many churches. The bowls were often cast out or buried in
the churchyard. At _Ambleston_ in Wales the font pedestal was only ten
years ago found in use by a farmer as a cheese-press, and the bowl on
another farm doing duty as a pig-trough.
Still many have escaped with the loss of their carved covers, and how
great the loss is can be judged when we see the beauty of such work as
the cover which we still have at Ufford in Suffolk, eighteen feet high,
or the similar ones at _Grantham_ and _Fosdyke_ and _Frieston_ in our
own county, or at _Ewelme_ (Oxon), and _Thaxted_ (Essex), and again in
Suffolk at _Sudbury St. Gregory_ and _Hepworth_, and one at _Thirsk_ in
Yorkshire which rises to the height of twenty-one feet. Sometimes the
cover takes the form of a canopy, as at _Swymbridge_ in Devon, and more
beautifully in that erected by Bishop Cosin at _Durham_ in 1663. The
_Sudbury_ font-cover has doors in it, as we see in the Jacobean cover
in _Burgh-le-Marsh_ church, and in the beautiful modern cover at _Brant
Broughton_, both in Lincolnshire.
[Sidenote: FONTS, SAXON AND NORMAN]
There were at one time many Saxon fonts, most of which were swept away
and replaced in a different form by the Normans. One of the earliest we
have is in _St. Martin’s Church, Canterbury_, the lower part of which,
built of twenty-eight wedge-shaped stones, is Saxon or Romano-British,
the upper part being Norman put on to heighten it, with the old Saxon
rim crowning it, though by some this is called Transitional. This font
was inside the church when King Ethelbert was baptised by St. Augustine
in the ninth century. But we get back still further when we find runic
inscriptions, as on the wonderful square tub font at _Bridekirk_,
Cumberland, and on the little low hollowed stone at _Bingley_, Yorkshire,
attributed to the eighth century, and having three lines of runes which
are read thus:—
“Eadbert, King, ordered to hew this dipstone for us, pray you for his
soul.” He reigned 737 to 758, when as Æthelred King of Mercia in 675, had
done at Bardney Abbey in the previous century, he resigned the crown and
took the tonsure. _Mellor_, in Derbyshire, has a Saxon font, but without
inscription.
The remarkable font at _Bag Enderby_, Lincolnshire (_see_ Chap. XXX.),
with its Scandinavian myth, is unique among fonts, though it has
counterparts on many of the pre-Norman crosses in Northumbria. The font
at _Deerhurst_, Gloucestershire, is also a very early one, and covered
with Celtic scroll-work, this, though of the same kind, is bigger than
the usual plain little stone tubs which, as a rule, mark the Saxon period.
The Norman fonts also are mainly of tub form, but often ornamented with
cable moulding and arcading, as at _Silk Willoughby_, Lincolnshire.
[Sidenote: LINCOLNSHIRE FONTS]
The lead fonts, twenty-nine of which are in existence, are all Norman;
most of these have arcading all round and figures within the arches;
perhaps the best is at _Dorchester_, Oxon, showing the apostles. But at
_Brookland_, in Romney Marsh, there is a double row of arcading with
the signs of the Zodiac above, and figures cleverly emblematic of the
months below. At _Childrey_, Berks, the figures are without arcading and
represent bishops with crosiers, all quaintly of the same attenuated
shape, and in very high relief. Berkshire and Oxon have several of these
lead fonts, and Gloucestershire exhibits six, all cast in the same mould;
Lincolnshire has only one at _Barnetby-le-Wold_, which is noticeable,
however, as being the largest of them all, thirty-two inches in diameter;
that at _Brookland_ being the deepest with sixteen inches.
The _Tournai_ group of black marble or basalt with thick central pedestal
and four corner shafts, of which that at Winchester is the best, are
described under Lincoln, in Chap. XIX. This form of support is pretty
general through the thirteenth century, often with much massive carving
and ornamentation on bowl and shafts, until the shafts developed, in some
cases, into an open arcade round the central pillar, as best seen at
_Barnack_, Northants. The tallest fonts and finest in design are of the
fifteenth century, and are mostly octagonal pedestal fonts and frequently
mounted on steps as in the churches of the Marsh near Boston, _e.g._,
_Benington_ and _Leverton_. Some bowls are found with seven panels as
at _Hundleby_, six as at _Ewerby_, _Heckington_ and _Sleaford_, nine as
at _Orleton_, in Herefordshire, and at _Bigby_, in Lincolnshire, thus
giving eight panels for figures, and allowing one to be placed against a
wall or pillar; and ten, twelve, fourteen, and sixteen are not unknown.
In our own county we have mentioned the font in nearly every case when
describing a church, and will only now recall a few instances of the
best. In addition to the _Tournai_ font at _Thornton Curtis_ and that
of lead at _Barnetby_, the finest specimens of Early English will be
found at _Thorpe St. Peter’s_ near Wainfleet—a very chaste design; the
supporting shafts are gone, but the capitals show heads of bishop, king,
and knight, and a knot of flowers supporting the bowl; and at _Weston_,
near Spalding, where is one of singularly graceful form, standing on
steps with a broad platform for the priest. At _Thurlby_, near Bourne,
is a tub of Barnack stone which has pilasters all round it, and curious
carved work dividing the panels, the whole being set on four square stone
legs.
Of Decorated fonts, _Ewerby_ is remarkable; hexagonal, with sides
going straight down from the bowl, each panel representing a window
with tracery, tending in design to Perpendicular, so that it probably
dates from the end of the fourteenth century. The windows are filled
with diaper work, and surrounded by a border of quatre-foils and
flowing foliage. Other good Decorated fonts are at _Strubby_ and
_Maltby-le-Marsh_ and _Huttoft_, all near Alford. The Perpendicular
period is best seen at _Covenham St. Mary_, _North Somercotes_, _Bourne_,
_Pinchbeck_, _Leverton_, and _Benington_.
It is on the panels of the handsome fifteenth century fonts that the
seven sacraments are carved, leaving one panel for any appropriate
subject, and these panels are often real pictures of the methods of the
time, and form most valuable records; the pedestal usually has its panels
filled with Apostolic figures.
[Sidenote: EAST ANGLIAN FONTS]
It is curious that nearly all the thirty “seven sacrament fonts” in
the kingdom are found in East Anglia; those of _Walsoken_, _Little
Walsingham_, _East Dereham_, and _Great Glenham_ in Norfolk, and
_Westall_ in Suffolk, are specially fine. And the churchwarden’s accounts
for _East Dereham_ show that no expense was spared on the making; the
total of £12 14_s._ 2_d._, being equivalent to over £200 of our money.
The sacraments depicted are Baptism, Confirmation, Penance, The
Eucharist, Holy Orders, Holy Matrimony, and Extreme Unction. But to
return to our own county.
_Utterby_, near Louth, has an open channel to drain the water off from
the font into the churchyard—a very uncommon feature.
_Wickenby_, near Wragby, retains the old bar and staple to secure the
font cover, at the time when the fonts were all ordered to be locked
to prevent possibility of the water being tainted by magic. “Water
bewitched” is a familiar expression for weak tea. I wonder if it comes
from this.
Of later fonts the quaintest is in _Moulton_ church, near Spalding, and
now disused. It represents the trunk of a tree carved in stone, the
branches going round the bowl and the serpent round the trunk, with Adam
and Eve, rather more than half life size, discussing the apple. It dates
from 1830, and seems to be a copy of one in the church of St. James’,
Piccadilly, said to have been carved in marble by Grinling Gibbons.
Mr. Francis Bond, in his charming book on porches and fonts, says that
some of the fonts in our most ancient Lincolnshire churches, _Cabourn_,
_Waith_, _Scartho_ and _Clee_, look older than they are by reason of
their coarse workmanship. He notes that the cover of the _Skirbeck_ font
belonged to a larger one destroyed by the Puritans, the present font
having been put up in 1662.
[Sidenote: WOODEN FONTS]
The material of all the fonts described above is either stone or lead.
We have very few of any other material, but of these by far the most
interesting are those made of solid oak, of which specimens are extant
at _Dinas-Mawddwy_ (pronounced Mouthy) and _Evenechtyd_ in Wales. But
one might go on long enough talking about fonts, and I would only urge
readers to go themselves and study them, and if they would pick out a
few of the finest they should visit the fonts and font covers we have
mentioned, and especially such typical fonts as are to be found at
_Winchester_ and _Durham_, at _Walsoken_ in Norfolk, at _Fishlake_ in
Yorkshire, and _Bridekirk_ in Cumberland, whenever they happen to be in
those neighbourhoods.
The worst of fonts is that they are so easily removable. Even in such
out-of-the-way places as _Crowle_ the font has not remained, though the
Norman south wall with its beautiful doorway is in quite good repair.
CHAPTER XXIII
ROADS FROM LOUTH, NORTH AND WEST
The Grimsby Group of Pre-Norman
Towers—Waith—Holton-le-Clay—Scartho—Clee—Humberstone—Tetney
—Ravendale—Ashby-cum-Fenby—Roads to Lincoln and
Horncastle—Hainton—Glentham—West Rasen—The Pack-horse
Bridge—Toft-next-Newton and Newton-by-Toft—Gibbet-posts—Middle
Rasen—The Labourer—Market Rasen—North Willingham—Tealby
and Bayons Manor—Bishop Odo—South Elkington—Road from
Horncastle—The South Wolds—Tathwell—Jane Chaplin.
[Sidenote: JUNE FLOWERS]
The road from Louth to Grimsby, in its first part, is described
elsewhere; but north of Ludborough it passes through a succession of
small villages in each of which is a very early church tower. These are
all somewhat similar to the two primitive churches in Lincoln and to the
famous one at Barton-on-Humber, but they have no “Long-and-Short” work
which is distinctive of the _Saxon_ towers, and so the term _Romanesque_
perhaps best describes them. They are certainly pre-Norman. Similar
groups have been described near Caistor and Gainsborough in Chaps. XVII.
and XX., and others mentioned in Chap. XXII. It was a bright and breezy
morning early in June when we set out from Well to visit this remarkable
group. The trees were at their best, chestnuts and may trees still in
bloom, and in the wayside gardens the laburnum with its “dropping-wells
of fire” was a joy to see. As we passed along the wind brought the strong
scent of the mustard fields and the delicious perfume of the beans, not
badly described by the Barber to his wife as “just like the very most
delicious hair-oil, my dear.” The pastures were golden with buttercups,
but the most wonderful sight of all was the profusion of chervil,
or cow-parsley (_Anthriscus_), which, with its lace-like flowers, at
times filled the space of grass between the road and the hedge with
mile upon mile of its delicate white blossom, and in places lined every
hedge, showing above the ordinary low-cut Lincolnshire fence, or, where
the hedge was higher, whitening the lower half in lines of flowery
loveliness. It nowhere encroached on the cultivated land, but every hedge
and ditch and roadside was marked out by it in a profusion of soft white
blossoms which was quite astonishing. We note that the “tender ash” is
still, as our Lincolnshire poet has it, delaying ‘to clothe herself when
all the woods are green,’ but a few days of such balmy sunshine will woo
even her leaves from out the bud, and full summer will be with us. The
red cattle are feeding in little herds, and the sheep, white from the
hands of the shearer, are dotted about the fields. The labourers seem,
most of them, to be at the same work, weeding the corn; but as we get
further on to the heavy lands whence _Holton-le-Clay_ so aptly gets its
name, we see teams of four horses abreast harnessed to the “Drags,” by
which the great clods are broken up.
The first of the group of towers we look at is _Waith_, a small cruciform
building in a churchyard thickly planted with trees, two fine cedars
among them. There are some Early English arcades to the nave, but
outside, the tower alone is ancient. This originally was just the width
of the nave, and has no openings in the north and south walls. It is
also built, not of rubble with quoins, but of dressed stones throughout,
solidly but roughly built, with a tiny opening low down; and above the
invariable string course, a double light of two small round-headed arches
supported by a stout mid-wall shaft with heavy impost. Coming away, we
note on a tombstone the curious and possibly Roman surname ‘Porcass.’ Two
miles south-west is _Grainsby_ where, as at Clee and Scartho, the stones
bear the red marks of Danish fire, and where, inside the tower, is an old
boulder stone. Two miles north, on the Grimsby road, is _Holton-le-Clay_,
where the tower of the church is of similar antiquity, all but the top
storey above the string-course. The west side has only one very small
window, but it has on the east side a good tall Romanesque tower-arch,
and there is an Early Norman or Saxon font. The rest of the church is of
the poorest in all respects.
[Sidenote: SCARTHO]
As we proceed, the tall windmill with six sails shows above the _Waltham_
woods on our left, and we pass a roadside inn with the sign of “The Old
Pop Shop.” Three miles more and we reach _Scartho_, a village which is
beginning to take the overflow of Grimsby and is full of new buildings.
This is the only living in the north or east of England which belongs
to Jesus College, Oxford. The church is very interesting on account of
its tower, which is Saxon in all but the absence of “Long-and-Short”
work. The stones of the tower are of all shapes and kinds, the quoins
alone being of hewn stone. Below are only the tiny windows common to all
Saxon towers, and above, the belfry has two-light windows with the usual
mid-wall shaft. In the west of the tower is a doorway with a round head
of large stones and massive imposts.
There is a deep, narrow archway from the nave into the tower, with a
little window looking into the nave, and there have been originally tall
arches in both the north and south walls, narrow of necessity so as to
leave wall enough at each angle for the tower to stand on. A charming
original font is there, but hideously placed on a modern inverted stone
bowl. The tower and the font are the only things worth looking at, but
both of these are of unusual interest. The parapet is Perpendicular and
built of different stone, and it is easy to see from the red appearance
of many calcined stones used in the tower that it has been rebuilt from
the old materials after a former church had been burnt by that scourge
of Lincolnshire—the Dane. The principal entrance is now through a big
doorway, but in the thirteenth century was in the south wall of the tower.
Leaving _Scartho_ we quickly reach the outskirts of Grimsby, and, turning
to the right on the Cleethorpes road, we come in a couple of miles
to the church of _Clee_. This is the best of the group we have been
visiting. It is one of the earliest churches in the county, and is highly
interesting, not only for the venerable antiquity of its tower, but for
the fine and varied early Norman and Transition architecture in the body
of the church. As a rule there is nothing left of any antiquity in these
pre-Norman churches but the tower.
[Sidenote: CLEE]
There is a narrow western doorway and a much taller one of similar
character opening into the nave; each has Voussoirs set in double
rows. Just above the belfry on the west face is a keyhole light made
of top and side stones, and a circular light in the south face. Mr.
Jeans, in Murray’s “Lincolnshire,” notes that they have all similar
characteristics—“Rubble walling with large quoins, a bold string-course
dividing them into stages, tall, narrow doorways with rude imposts and
coupled belfry windows with a massive mid-wall shaft.” All this we find
at _Clee_, and the red calcined stones in the wall tell of the Danish
fire here as at Scartho. The early Norman arcade in the north of the nave
has square piers with shafts at the corners, one of them twisted, like
the work in Durham Cathedral. All are different in their structure and in
the carving of their capitals. The south arcade has thick round columns
of later Norman work with chevron, billet, and very thick cable moulding.
The arches are round, and the stones of the moulding, as at Somerby,
being cut by various hands and without plan or drawing, fit together, but
are hardly any two of them of the same sized pattern. This is quite usual
in Norman arch mouldings. I noticed it lately over the west doorway of
the fine tower of New Romney, Kent. The arches at the east of each aisle
which give upon the transepts are pointed, but with Norman mouldings,
and the transept arches are the same; the transepts themselves and the
low central tower and the chancel are all modern. The old tower is, as
usual, at the west end. On the shaft of one of the south arcade pillars
is a very interesting record of two notable Bishops of Lincoln. It is in
Latin, cut on a small tablet of marble about six inches by eight, and
let in flush with the pillar. It says that “the Church was dedicated
in honour of the Holy Trinity and the blessed Virgin by Hugh Bishop of
Lincoln in the year 1192, in the time of King Richard and re-dedicated
after restoration by Bishop Christopher Wordsworth in 1888.” 1192 was the
same year in which Bishop Hugh began the choir at Lincoln, which is pure
Early English, but doubtless the nave at Clee was built some years before
it was dedicated. The font is a massive Norman one, and a portion of the
shaft of an early cross stands just inside the door.
[Illustration: _Clee Church._]
[Sidenote: PRE-NORMAN TOWER]
[Sidenote: ASHBY-CUM-FENBY]
The pathway to the church is lined on either side with tall fuschias,
not a usual sight near the east coast. This church is the old parish
church of _Cleethorpes_, which is the most crowded of the Lincolnshire
watering-places, the goal of endless excursions from all the neighbouring
counties, but not a place of any attraction for residents. Six miles
due east across the river Humber is the revolving light of the Spurn
Head lighthouse, plainly seen from the hill above Alford, thirty miles
away. Between the Louth and Grimsby main road and the sea another road
runs south from Clee by Humberstone and Tetney, thence to Covenham
and Alvingham and so to Louth. _Humberstone_ is a parish which goes
with Holton-le-Clay, though they are about three miles apart. It is
remarkable for its fine avenues of trees, and has a good Perpendicular
tower. But in this respect it is surpassed by the extremely well-built
and well-designed tower at the next village of Tetney. This, unlike the
body of the church, is entirely of good, hard, grey Yorkshire stone.
Some “Blow Wells,” which are circular pits of very blue water 100 feet
deep, are in a field half a mile to the south-east of the church. There
are others at _Laceby_ and _Little Cotes_, both in the valley of the
Freshney river, six miles off. The water comes through faults in the
limestone ridge four or five miles to the west. A stream also flows
through Tetney, which comes out of the Croxby pond near _Hatcliffe_, the
only piece of water in the neighbourhood. The roads we have been writing
of are all entirely in the flat ground, but from the Louth and Grimsby
main road a branch goes off to the left, after crossing a fourteenth
century bridge with ribbed arches, at _Utterby_, which runs north along
the western edge of the Wold past Brocklesby to Barrow on Humber. This,
when it is opposite to Waith, has on its left a place called Ravendale,
and, on its right, a little hidden away village, called Ashby-cum-Fenby.
At _Ravendale_ there was once a priory belonging to a Premonstratensian
abbey in Brittany. It was seized by the Crown with other alien priories
in 1337 to form part of the dowry of Joan of Navarre, Queen of Henry IV.
_Ashby-cum-Fenby_ has very pretty Early-English two-light windows in the
belfry, set round with dog-tooth moulding. A Crusader effigy of 1300 is
at the west end of the tower, and two fine monuments to two sisters of
the Drury family are in good preservation; one to Sir F. and Lady Wray
closely resembles the Irby monument at Whaplode, and, as the families
are related, probably the work is by the same sculptor. That of Susannah
Drury in the chancel is a good piece of sculpture, but the whole has
literally been whitewashed, which does not improve it. The churchyard is
for the most part deplorably neglected, and a few sheep would greatly
improve it. A row of almshouses with tiny gardens, made like the
Workmen’s row at Tattershall, adjoins the west side of the churchyard.
The road after this passes nothing of importance near it, till it reaches
Brocklesby.
Close to the bell ropes in the tower at Tetney is a neat little brass
which aptly commemorates a fine old parishioner as follows:—
Matthew Lakin
born 1801 died 1899 One of the regular bellringers of
Tetney for 84 years and sometime Clerk and Sexton.
The highway which goes out of Louth on the west, after passing Thorpe
Hall, within a mile of the town, soon splits into two, the one going
up the hill to the right has, at first, a north-easterly course, but
after passing through South Elkington leaves North Elkington on the
right and goes on due east to Market Rasen and Gainsborough, and is the
great east-and-west road of North Lincolnshire: the only other roads
which take that direction being the Boston-Sleaford-and-Newark and the
Donington-and-Grantham roads in the southern part of the county, and the
great Sutton-Holbeach-Spalding-Bourne-and-Colsterworth road. But none of
these run so straight.
[Sidenote: HAINTON]
The other road from the foot of South Elkington hill goes on at first
due west till, passing Welton-le-Wold on the right and Gayton-le-Wold on
the left, it drops into the picturesque little village of Burgh-on-Bain
(pronounced Bruff). So far we have had a wide Wold view, but no blue
distances over fen or marsh; but _Grimblethorpe_ and _Burgh-on-Bain_ are
in two parallel little valleys, and when the road turns here, at seven
miles distance from Louth, to the south-west, a quite different type of
country is entered, beginning with the woods of _Girsby_, the seat of Mr.
J. Fox, quondam joint Master of the Southwold Hounds, and _Hainton_ Hall
and park, where the Heneage family have been seated since the time of
Henry III. The church tower has some of the characteristics of the early
Norman or pre-Norman groups, and both church and chantry-chapel are rich
in monuments of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and brasses of
still earlier date. The altar tombs of 1553 and 1595 are magnificent, and
the kneeling effigies of 1559 and 1610 are in excellent preservation.
The helmets and spurs over the effigy of John (1559), and the gilded
armour of Sir George (1595), are especially noticeable, as also are the
varied spellings of the name—in 1435 Henege, in 1530 Hennage, and in 1553
Henneage.
[Sidenote: GLENTHAM]
From here a road leads to the left to _South Willingham_ and
_Benniworth_, but the main road runs through _East and West Barkwith_,
with those fine grass borders, each wider than the road, which are
characteristic of the Wold highways, for five miles to _Wragby_, eleven
miles from Lincoln. Near East Barkwith Station is Mr. Turnor’s residence,
Panton Hall, and from West Barkwith a road goes to the _Torringtons_.
Here Gilbert of Sempringham was rector, and established one of his
Gilbertine houses. The road on either side of the rather town-like
village of _Wragby_ is uninteresting, till suddenly, at a distance of
eight miles, the towers of Lincoln Minster appear, not in front, but away
to the left, and then again disappear from view. But the road turns, and
after four miles, lo! again the Minster, straight in front; and as you
approach from the north-east you see all three towers at the end of the
long road, getting ever finer as you approach and are able to make out
the details of the architecture. Only too quickly you come to the top of
the hill, and gaze at the splendid upper windows of the great bell tower,
now close on your right, then sweep down the curve and, passing through
the Minster yard by the Potter and Exchequer gates, go out northwards by
the old Roman Ermine Street. We soon reach the turn to Riseholme, where
from 1830, when Buckden was given up, the bishops resided, until Bishop
King built the present house in the Old Palace grounds in Lincoln, and
where in the churchyard are the tombs of her much-revered Bishops Kaye
and Wordsworth, though their monuments are in the cathedral. After this
we pass nothing, the road running straight on for over thirty miles,
and on much the same level all the way. But we will only go to the
thirteenth milestone and turn to the right at _Caenby_ Corner, where
the Gainsborough and Louth road crosses the Ermine Street, and so make
our way back by Market Rasen. The first village we shall come to is
_Glentham_, which contains in chancel and chantry several monuments
of the Tourney family from 1452. It is believed that the church was
originally dedicated to “Our Lady of Pity,” hence, over the porch is a
beautiful little carving of the Virgin holding the dead Christ, and the
Tourney arms below it. A brass to Ann Tourney has the following play on
words:—
“Abiit non obiit, preiit non periit.”
Till the early part of last century, a rent charge on some land in the
village provided a shilling each for seven old maids every Good Friday
for washing the recumbent effigy of a lady of the Tourney family which
is under the gallery, with water from “The New Well.” This singular
survival of the custom of washing an effigy of the dead Christ for a
representation of the entombment is now abandoned, as the land was sold
in 1852 without reservation of the rent charge on it. The effigy was
known as “Molly Grime,” a corruption of “Malgraen,” which means in some
ancient tongue or dialect the ‘Holy-Image-Washing.’ (“Lincs. Notes and
Queries.” I., 125.)
The church is rather a curiosity, being seated throughout with box pens
and having a gallery at the west end. Even the font is painted, and is a
cheese-shaped stone on three legs placed on a round block. The door is
old and has an unmistakable sanctuary ring on it, as at Durham, and the
porch has a pretty little two-light window on each side.
[Sidenote: THE TOURNAYS]
The Tournays of Caenby are one of the genuine old county families, having
held land in it certainly since 1328. John Tournay, in the sixteenth
century, married a Talboys co-heiress, and was brother-in-law to Sir
Christopher Willoughby and Sir Edward Dymoke.
The manor of Caenby-cum-Glentham, given in the thirteenth century
to Barlings Abbey, and at the dissolution, along with so many other
things, bestowed by Henry VIII. on Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, was
purchased by Edward Tournay in 1675, but he had inherited another manor
in Caenby, or Cavenby through a long line of ancestors from the family
of Thornton, of whom one Gilbert de Thornton was Lord Chief Justice of
the King’s Bench, 1289-1295. The present representative of the Tournays,
or Tornys, who, to suit both spellings, have a tower for a crest and
a chevron between three Bulls for their coat of arms, is Sir Arthur
Middleton of Belsay Castle, Northumberland, who parted with the property
at Caenby in 1871.
Three miles beyond Glentham we reach “Bishops’ Bridge” inn. Here a
fourteenth century bridge crosses the stream at the junction of the River
Rase with the Ancholme. Thence, after several turns, the road reaches
_West Rasen_, where there is a most picturesque and interesting Pack
Horse Bridge of the same date, with three ribbed arches, placed at right
angles to the present road. The church has heavy embattled turrets and
some curious carved figures in the chancel.
[Sidenote: THE ‘GOOD OLD DAYS’]
Going south from here, a roundabout road takes you to _Buslingthorpe_,
passing by the two oddly-named villages of _Toft-next-Newton_ and
_Newton-by-Toft_, each apparently, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee,
leaning for support on the other. Two miles to the west, on the Normanby
road, is Gibbet-posthouse. The name Gibbet-post or Gibbet-hill is not
uncommon, but I doubt if a single post remains. Eighty years ago some
still held their ghastly record. My uncle, Edward Rawnsley, who was born
in 1815, told me once that he had passed one with a skeleton hanging in
chains, as he rode from Bourne to Wisbech. The Melton Ross gallows was
renewed in 1830.
Only two miles east of West Rasen we reach _Middle Rasen_, which has an
interesting church. It once had two, one on each side of the stream; the
existing one, which belonged to Tupholme Abbey, has a very fine Norman
south door and Norman piers to the chancel arch, and a deeply moulded
Early English arcade, on which is a singular beaded moulding. There is
also a low-side window and a beautiful Perpendicular rood screen, also a
fourteenth-century effigy of a priest with vestments and chalice. In the
churchyard is the font of the other church.
In the days of toll-bars there were two at Middle Rasen; usually they
were let to the highest bidder, and the man who took the main road gate
in the year 1845 is still living, at the age of eighty-nine, in 1912. A
toll-bar keeper in the days before railways, when all the corn went to
market by road, had little rest at night, as waggons full or empty passed
through at all hours. In his early days food was dear—tea eight shillings
a pound—and wages were low, and bread and water and barley-chaff dumpling
were the common fare. He is now a rate-collector and, of course, can
read and write, but he never went to school, and at eight years of age
he began to earn a little by “scaring crows.” At fifteen he was mowing
and using the flail at his native village of Legbourne. In a field, near
where the station now is, he remembers a man mowing wheat for six days on
bread and water, and the crop yielded six quarters to the acre. A woman
of ninety-three, now living in the Wolds, remembers when flour was 4_s._
6_d._ a stone, and a loaf cost 11½_d._ instead of 2½_d._ They mixed rye
with wheat flour and baked at home; and a labourer who earned enough to
buy a stone of flour a day thought he could live well.
Only the other day I heard of a labouring family living just between
the Wold and the Marsh, seven sons of a retired Crimean soldier. The
clergyman used to make them a present at the christening if he might
choose the name, and he gave them grand historic names for them to
live up to, _e.g._, Washington and Wellington, and the plan certainly
answered, for they all took to the land and by steadiness, hard work and
good sense raised themselves first to a foreman’s position and then to
that of small occupiers, with the result that the family now farms three
or four hundred acres between them. Yet they, as children, had had a
hard struggle, and never knew either luxury or comfort. Their cottage
had but two rooms, and half the family having gone to bed with the sun,
habitually got up when night was but half over and came and sat round
the fire whilst the other half went to bed. The conditions of life have
improved since then, but the men of to-day can’t have more of the right
stuff in them.
Another instance of the same kind which goes to prove that no walk of
life is without its chances, if only the man is strenuous and sober and
gifted with good sense, is that of a family in the Louth neighbourhood,
three grandsons of a labouring man, who in two generations have raised
themselves to such purpose that they now farm between them some
10,000 acres. Of course the great factors in such successful careers
are steadiness and industry, and that shrewd good sense which is so
characteristic of the best Lincolnshire natives.
Not many years ago I talked with a small farmer in Hampshire, whose
wages as a labourer used to be ten and sixpence a week, when a pair of
boots cost eighteen shillings; but then, he said, they did wear well.
The family lived, year in year out, on hot water with barley in it and a
sprinkling of salt. And yet, incredible as it may seem, he and his wife
had brought up a family of ten. There was some grit in those people.
[Sidenote: MARKET RASEN]
From _Middle Rasen_ it is little more than a mile to _Market Rasen_. Men
still living there can recall the Shrove Tuesday football, when the whole
male population of the village, aided by friends from outside, spent some
strenuous hours in trying to get the ball into Middle Rasen. The windows
were boarded up all along the road, and the struggle of hundreds of rough
fellows was more concerned in pushing their opponents into the beck by
the roadside than in keeping on the ball.
The town has an unusual number of schools in it. The De Aston School,
founded 1401 at Spital, was set up here in 1862 as a middle-class school,
and has been most successful; and the church school and still larger
Wesleyan school between them can accommodate nearly 400 children.
From Market Rasen three miles of low country brings us to _North
Willingham_. The Hall, the home of Mr. Wright, was for over a hundred
years the residence of the family of Boucherett, whose former mansion
stood a couple of miles to the west. The present house with its pretty
bit of water faces the road. In the village we may see a blacksmith who,
at the age of ninety, can still shoe a horse. We are now twelve miles
from Louth; a road to the left goes to Tealby and Bayons Manor, and to
the right by _Sixhills_ to Hainton; and here, instead of going right on
up the sweep of the hill, we will make the round by Tealby and come back
to the high road at Ludford Parva.
[Sidenote: BAYONS MANOR]
_Tealby_ is quite an ideal village, with beautiful trees, a fine and
well-placed church, a stream and bridges and picturesque cottages. One
road leads from it up the steep “Bully hill,” a 300 feet rise, another
road takes us to _Bayons Manor_, the seat of the Tennyson d’Eyncourt
family. Originally there was an old eleventh or twelfth century fortified
dwelling about a hundred yards up the hill, traces of which may still
be seen in bank or dyke. This was replaced about the sixteenth century
by a fairly large house, at one time thatched; part of this remains as
the nucleus of the present castellated mansion built in the romantic
era of the Waverley novels and completed with drawbridge and barbican
in the middle of the last century by Charles Tennyson, M.P., uncle of
the poet, who, after the death of his father, George Tennyson, took the
name of d’Eyncourt. His grandson, E. Tennyson d’Eyncourt, now lives
there. The house has a fine open-roofed hall, and is replete with
interesting mementoes of the Tennysons as well as of the ancient family
of d’Eyncourt. The site is good, with a charming garden sloping to the
park, in which is a fine piece of water. The name Bayons is derived from
its first Norman possessor, Odo, Bishop of Bayeux. He was half-brother
to William the Conqueror on the mother’s side, and he was so exalted a
personage that he was called “Totius Angliae Vice-dominus, sub rege.”
Thus he was on occasions the king’s representative, and seems to have had
as much land in Lincolnshire and elsewhere granted to him by William, as
Charles Brandon Duke of Suffolk had under Henry VIII., for we hear that
he held seventy-six manors in the county and 463 in other parts.
It is interesting to know that Bulwer Lytton in 1848, when he was trying
to recover his seat for Lincoln, wrote his historical romance “Harold”
here, making good use of his friend Mr. Tennyson d’Eyncourt’s fine
collection of early English chronicles.
A little north of Tealby is the temporarily disused church of _Walesby_,
where once Robert Burton (1577-1640), author of the “Anatomy of
Melancholy,” was rector, before he went to Segrave in Leicestershire. It
is hoped that this church may soon be in use again.
One of the many roads across the Wolds from Rasen to Grimsby passes
through _Walesby_ to _Stainton-le-Vale_ and _Thorganby_, another goes
through _Tealby_, _Kirmond-le-Mire_, and _Binbrook_, once a market town,
and near to _Swinhope_, the ancestral seat of the Alingtons. Both roads
after this unite and pass by _East Ravendale_, _Brigsley_, _Waltham_ and
_Scartho_.
A clear stream flows north through a narrow valley from Kirmond top
through Swinhope, Thorganby, Croxby pond, Hatcliffe, and almost to
Barnoldsby, and thence east to Brigsley, and so across the marsh to
Tetney Haven.
[Sidenote: SOUTH ELKINGTON]
Leaving Tealby, we climb to the top of the Ludford ridge, and, turning
to the right, come to the Market Rasen and Louth highway at Willingham
Corner, thence, to the left, by _Ludford Magna_ with its cruciform church
on the infant ‘Bain.’ To the right we notice Wykeham Hall, further on
to the left the church of _Kelstern_, standing solitary in a field, and
soon we reach the singularly beautiful and well-wooded approach to Louth
by _South Elkington_, the seat of Mr. W. Smyth. The church here, whose
patronage goes with the Elkington estate, was given about 1250 to the
convent at Ormsby, which presented to it until the dissolution, when it
fell to the Crown, and was given, in 1601, by Queen Elizabeth to the
famous John Bolle of Thorpe Hall. This Hall we now pass on our approach
to Louth, and a splendid picture awaits us when we see that lovely spire
of Louth church, standing up out of a grove of trees, and eventually
presenting itself to our eyes, in its full height and beautiful
proportions, as we come into the town by the west gate.
[Sidenote: LOUTH SPIRE]
The highway from Louth to Horncastle is best traversed the reverse way.
Starting from Horncastle with its little river—the Bain—its cobble-paved
streets and its pretty little thatched hostel, the King’s Head, the Louth
road brings us soon to West Ashby. Then, at a distance of four miles
from Horncastle, we come suddenly on the unpretending buildings of the
Southwold Hunt kennels. These are in the parish of _Belchford_, which
lies half a mile to the right.
[Illustration: _Westgate, Louth._]
We now climb 300 feet up Flint Hill, a name which tells us that we are
on an outlier of the chalk wolds, and a fine view opens out on the
left which we can enjoy for a mile, after which the road turns to the
right and discloses a totally different scene. In front lies the snug
village of _Scamblesby_, and behind it the south-eastern portion of the
South Wolds, sweeping round from Oxcombe’s wooded slope in a wide curve
to Redhill, behind which the Louth and Lincoln railway emerges near
_Donington-on-Bain_. It is a fine landscape.
We descend to the village, and passing in the wide valley the turn to
Asterby and Goulceby on the left, set ourselves to climb the main ridge
of the Wolds by _Cawkwell_. On the top of the hill we pass a cross road
which runs for many miles right and left without coming to anything in
the shape of a village; and naturally so, for the road like the Roman
streets in the Lake District, keeps sturdily along the highest ground,
and who would care to live on a wind-swept ridge?
[Sidenote: TATHWELL]
To the right the Wold runs up to nearly 500 feet, but our road only
crosses it, and after little more than a mile we see the level of the
marsh and the tall spire of Louth five miles ahead of us. The road
here forks, and forsaking the direct route by Raithby we will take the
right-hand road and in a couple of miles find ourselves dropping to the
village of _Tathwell_. This we circle round and arrive at the lane which
leads to the church.
This little church, dedicated to St. Vedast, who was Bishop of Arras
and Cambray (_circa_ 500), was once a Norman building, but the Norman
pilasters supporting the round tower-arch of the eleventh century are
all that is left of that period, unless the four courses nearest the
ground of large stones of a hard, grey, sandstone grit can be referred
to it. Upon these now is built a structure of brick with a broad tower
at the west and an apse at the east; but the charm of the place is its
situation, on a steep little hill overlooking a good sheet of clear
chalk-stream water. You look westwards across this to a pathway running
up the slope opposite which is fringed with a fine row of beeches, and
just below you at the edge of the little graveyard you see the thatched
roof of a primitive cottage, whilst beyond it the ground is broken into
steep little grass fields, the whole most picturesquely grouped.
We leave the secluded little village, and turning to the right, pass
between the Danish camp on Orgarth Hill and the six long barrows on Bully
Hill (the second hill of the name, the other being near Tealby). These
are all probably of the same date; the latter in a field adjoining the
road. A mile more and we turn to the left at Haugham, where is another
and larger tumulus, after passing which, on the left, we soon come to the
main Louth and Spilsby road.
The number six seems to have been a favourite one with the Vikings.
Eleven miles to the west of Bully Hill is “Sixhills,” between Hainton and
North Willingham, and another place of the same name near Stevenage in
Hertfordshire shows a fine row of six tumuli close to the road side.
[Sidenote: JANE CHAPLIN]
On October 25 there was a funeral in the Tathwell churchyard, when, in
presence of her surviving grand-children and great-grandchildren Jane
Chaplin was laid to rest beside the husband who had died forty years
before. She was not only of a remarkable age—it is seldom that a coffin
plate bears such an inscription:—
“Jane Chaplin, born 24th June, 1811, died 21st October, 1913”—
but during all that long life she was always cheerful and kindly and full
of interest, and up to the very last, within two hours of her death,
she was bright and happy, lively with talk and merriment, and in full
possession of all her faculties. On her 102nd birthday she received her
relatives and delighted them with her reminiscences of the days before
they were born, telling the writer how she remembered Alfred Tennyson
asking her to dance at the local ball, and adding that she was still
able to read and to paint, though she had of late years given up reading
by candlelight for fear of trying her eyes, and saying how thankful she
was that she felt so well and had no pains and was, in fact, much better
than she used to be fifty years ago. She had left Lincolnshire and lived
of late years at Bournemouth and then at Cheltenham, where she literally
‘fell on sleep’ and passed from this life to the next, without any
illness or struggle, in the happiest possible manner. Truly, we may say
with Milton—
Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail
Or knock the breast.
CHAPTER XXIV
LINCOLNSHIRE BYWAYS
Willoughby and Captain John Smith—Grimoldby—South
Cockerington—Sir Adrian Scrope’s Tomb—Alvingham—Two Churches
in one Churchyard—Yarborough—The Covenhams—Hog-back
View—Milescross Hill to Gunby—Skendleby—South Ormsby and
Walmsgate—Belchford—Thorpe Hall—The Elkingtons.
The Romans had a road from the sea probably by Burgh and Gunby and then
on the ridge by Ulceby cross-roads to Louth, and so on the east edge of
the Wold north to the Humber.
It is not a particularly interesting route, but if at Gunby we turn to
the right we shall pass _Willoughby_ with its old sandstone church in a
well-kept churchyard, a somewhat rare thing on this route. The church
(St. Helen’s) has some Saxon stones in the south wall of the tower, and
a double arch on the north side of the chancel, a Norman arch in front
of a fourteenth century one. Here, in 1579, was born the redoubtable
Captain John Smith, president of Virginia and the hero of the famous
Pocahontas[13] story, a man whose life was more full of adventure than
perhaps any in history. The interest which Pocahontas created when she
came to England is evinced by the number of inn signs of “The belle
Sauvage.” The church has a singular slab with the head and shoulders of a
man, name unknown, in relief cut on it at one end—his feet showing at the
other, something after the fashion of a “sandwich-man.” The huge belfry
ladder is also noteworthy, being made of two trees, whole, with stout,
rough timber spiked to them for steps.
[Sidenote: GRIMOLDBY]
From _Willoughby_ to _Alford_ and on by _Saleby_, _Withern_,
_Gayton-le-Marsh_, _Great_ and _Little Carlton_, and _Manby_, the road
is not remarkable; but, after crossing the main road from Horncastle
to Saltfleet, which has come over the Wold _viâ_ Scamblesby, Cawkwell
and Tathwell, it arrives at _Grimoldby_. Here the church is noteworthy
for the size and excellence of its gargoyles. Outside it has heavy
battlemented parapets, a good gable-cross with pent-house over it, as on
the Somersby cross, and the entire shaft of a churchyard cross. Inside,
the nave is whitewashed, but the fine old roof remains, and on one of
the beams is the pulley block for the rood light, as at Addlethorpe and
Winthorpe. The door is old and has been enriched with carving and there
is the lower part of a good rood screen with three returns, possibly for
lights, projecting twelve inches westwards. This arrangement is also
found in the rood screen at Thornton Curtis. In the north porch is a fine
holy water stoup.
[Illustration: _Manby._]
For the next six miles churches are to be found at every mile.
[Sidenote: SIR ADRIAN SCROPE]
_South Cockerington_ has a little holy water stoup just inside the door.
Part of a handsome rood screen is stowed away under the tower, the rest
being in _Manby_ Church. The church has had a profusion of consecration
crosses—a dozen have been noticed, some of which still remain cut in the
stone and filled with dark cement. Nearly all the churches about here
are in two styles—Decorated and Perpendicular; and though _Grimoldby_
exhibits only one style, it is the transition between these two. The
most noticeable thing in the church is the alabaster altar tomb to Sir
Adrian Scrope, with effigies of his five sons over whom is the legend
‘similis in prole resurgo,’ and two daughters and an infant, over whom is
written ‘Pares et impares.’ Does this mean “Like in face but different in
character,” or “Like their father but not so good-looking”? The knight
is represented armed and half reclining on one elbow, with his helmet
behind him and his mailed glove by his knee, the head and face very
life-like, the hands and fingers extremely delicate. On a brass plate he
is described as the thrice honourable Adrian Scrope, Kt., etc., and this
verse follows:—
Tombs are but dumb day-books, they will not keepe
There names alive who in these wombes doe sleepe,
But who would pen the virtues of this knight
A story not an epitaph must write.
It was not easy to find the way to _South Cockerington_ as the road to
it literally forms a square, and then passes on from the churchyard gate
right through a farm; but to reach _North Cockerington_ you seem to go
round at least five sides of a square or squares, then cross the Louth
River, and then a bridge just above a water mill, and passing by two
gates through a farmyard you arrive in a grass field, in which, devoid of
any sort of fence on the north and west sides, the plain-looking church
of _Alvingham_ stands; a gate leads to the south door, near which a few
yards of grass is mown, but the rest of the churchyard is a tangle of
long grass and tall nettles; and amongst them, within a stone’s throw,
stands a second and larger church of _North Cockerington_, in which no
service is held. “There _is_ some wildernesses!” was the apt remark of
our driver as we reached the churchyard gate.
Two churches in one churchyard are to be found at Evesham in
Worcestershire, and at Reepham in Norfolk. These I have seen; others are
at Willingate in Essex, and at Trimley in Suffolk. At Evesham there is
even a third tower for the bells. This is of stone, but in a few other
places, as at Brookland in Romney Marsh, the bell tower is a separate
timber erection. The reason for two here was that Alvingham, dedicated
to St. Adelwold, is the parish church, but there was once a Gilbertine
priory for monks and nuns close by, to which the other church served as a
chapel. This was also the parish church of North Cockerington at a very
early date, mention being made of it in a charter of about 1150.
The Alvingham Cartulary or priory book, once in possession of F. G.
Ingoldby, Esq., is now in Louth Museum, and among the charters is a
curious entry of an agreement between the joint occupiers of a meadow
that their men should meet on a certain day at Cockerington Church and
there fix a day for beginning to mow.
[Sidenote: YARBOROUGH WEST DOOR]
The next village is one which gives his title to Lord _Yarborough_.
The church, like so many in this neighbourhood, Grimoldby and South
Cockerington being honourable exceptions, is locked, but the chief point
of interest is to be seen outside. This is a beautiful example of a
richly carved doorway. The mouldings of the square head are good and set
with little ornaments, and very bold and original carvings run round the
arch of the doorway. The space between the arch and the outer square
head mould is filled with shallow carved work representing on the left,
the fall, with Adam, Eve, the Serpent, and much good foliage carving;
and on the right the Lamb and the emblems of the Passion. An old English
inscription runs round the arch of the doorway, but is only in part
decipherable; the stone is a white hardish sandstone, and the surface a
good deal worn, but the whole design is most elegant and unusual.
A mile more brings us to the two churches of _Covenham_, within a
quarter of a mile of each other, and both locked. Covenham _St. Mary_
seems to be built of a hard chalk. There are mason-marks high up on each
pilaster of the porch. The other church, of _St. Bartholomew_, was once a
cruciform building. It is made of the same white material, but the tower
is now covered with Welsh slate, and one transept is gone. The fonts
in both churches are good. That in St. Mary’s is, for beauty of design
and boldness of execution, the best in the neighbourhood, but they do
not compare for beauty and size with those in the Fen churches, which
are lofty and set on wide octagonal basements of three or four steps.
Here, the brass to Sir John Skipwyth, who died at, or in the year of,
Agincourt, 1415, is in exceptionally good condition. He is armed and has
both the long dagger and sword, the latter suspended from his left arm by
a strap. The tail of the lion on which he stands is erect between the leg
of the knight and his sword.
The rest of the route by _Fulston_, _Tetney_ and _Humberston_ to
Grimsby is not of any interest until we come to _Clee_, which, with its
interesting Saxon church tower, we have already described.
[Sidenote: A ROMAN ‘HOG’S BACK’]
In the Wold country the main roads usually run along the ridges of the
Wolds and afford views on either side. One of the best of these, “Hog’s
Back” views is obtained from one of the byways which starts from the
Spilsby and Alford road at the top of Milescross hill, and runs south
till it reaches Gunby. It skirts the wooded belt of the Well Vale estate,
and drops into the village of _Ulceby_ which, like most of the tiny Wold
villages, lies on the bank of a small stream in a wooded hollow, where
the church and farm and a few cottages form a pleasing picture of rural
retirement.
Mounting again, the road turns to the left and goes straight ahead on
what is evidently a portion of a Roman “street,” giving on the left a
view of the “Marsh” towards Mablethorpe, with its grey shimmering line
which denotes “the bounding main,” and on the right a still more distant
prospect over the flat “fen” lands in the direction of Boston, whose
columnar tower rises far up into the sky. The blue haze of the marsh, the
purple distance over the fens, with, in the autumn, the long, drifting
lines of grey smoke from the burning “quitch,” or “twitch” as they
usually call it here, make a delightful impression; and then if we turn
fenwards we drop into the leafy hollow of _Skendleby_ village, where once
the Conqueror’s friend, Gilbert de Gaunt, resided, and to which William
of Waynfleet, the famous Bishop of Winchester, was presented as vicar by
the convent of Bardney in 1430. It is a pretty village with its church
and manor-house, and thatched, white-washed cottages bright with flowers,
and its well-stocked farm. A tall windmill crowns the next height; this
is Grebby Mill, and it is interesting to find that there has been a
windmill there for 600 years.
For _Grebby_ is old enough to be mentioned in Domesday Book, and in 1317
we have mention of a windmill there belonging to Robert de Willoughby and
Margaret his wife.
[Sidenote: THE FLOODED FEN]
From the windmill one looks down to the old brick tower of _Scremby_
church, which is the last building on the edge of the slope from which
the endless levels of the fen begin and run south till they reach
Crowland and Peterborough. From whence the great cathedral, with its
splendid west front, looked out in the disastrous August of 1912 over
miles and miles of corn-land where the tall sheaves stood up out of a
vast expanse of water, the result of the abnormal rains and the burst
dyke which made Whittlesea Mere once more resume its ancient appearance.
Below Scremby the road runs to the left to _Candlesby_, and so rejoins
that starting-place of so many byways—_Gunby_.
There was a church at Scremby in Norman times; at the dissolution the
manor came to the all-acquiring Duke of Suffolk. Now-a-days the handbook
dismisses it as “of no special interest,” but eighty-five years ago it
was thought worth while to mention that “at the west end of the nave is a
neat and commodious singing-gallery.”
Those who wish to see the beauties of the country must leave the high
ridge every here and there and make a round into the little villages
which lie at the foot of the Wolds, mostly on the western slopes where
they escape the strong sea winds.
From the Spilsby-and-Louth road a byway branches westwards, close to
_Walmsgate_, which will illustrate this, for it quickly drops into the
pretty village of _South Ormsby_, and, skirting the park on two sides,
runs on to the village of _Tetford_ with its red roofs and grey-green
church tower nestling under the hill. Thence the white line of road goes
north over Tetford hill to _Buckland_ and _Haugham_, and so rejoins the
main road again about four miles north of Walmsgate.
But before leaving Tetford we should take a look at the fine grassy
eminence of “Nab hill” with its entrenched camp, behind which lie the
kennels of the Southwold hounds at _Belchford_.
The road from Alford to Louth, by _Belleau_ and _Cawthorpe_, which runs
along the eastern edge of the South Wold and gives such a fine view over
the marsh, is interrupted at Louth, and you must go out for the first
four miles on the Louth and Grimsby main road, but on reaching Utterby
a turn to the left will bring you to a road which goes all the way to
Brocklesby without passing through any village but _Keelby_ in the whole
sixteen miles. This solitary road begins better than it ends for when it
gets opposite to _Barnoldby-le-Beck_, which is just half way, it sinks to
the level of the marsh.
[Sidenote: FOTHERBY TOP]
There are plenty of roads between Louth and Caistor, to the north-west,
along the Wolds, which are here some eight miles wide; and it would be
well worth while for the sake of the view over the marsh to take a little
round from Louth, starting out on the Lincoln road by Thorpe Hall, the
interesting home of the Bolles family, the ffytches, and, later, of
some of the Tennysons. By this route you soon come to the parting of
the ways to Wragby and Market Rasen, and taking the right hand road by
_South Elkington_, the charming residence of Mr. W. Smyth, you climb
up to a height of 400 feet, and taking the road to the right by _North
Elkington_—whose church has a fine pulpit copied from one still to be
seen at Tupholme Abbey, near Bardney—reach _Fotherby top_, from which
for a couple of miles you can command as fine a view of the marsh from
Grimsby to Mablethorpe as you can desire. Then leaving the height you can
go eastward by _North Ormsby_, and, joining the Grimsby-and-Louth road
at _Utterby_, run back to Louth. All approaches to Louth are rendered
beautiful by the splendid views you get of that marvellous spire; and as
the road drops steeply into the town you will hardly know whether the
approach from this northern side or from Kenwick on the south forms the
most striking picture.
CHAPTER XXV
THE BOLLES FAMILY
The byway which runs west from the Spilsby and Alford road, at the foot
of Milescross hill near Alford station, after passing Rigsby, comes to
a farm with an old manor-house and tiny church in a green hollow to the
left. A deep sort of cutting on this side of the church has, along its
steep grassy brow, a line of very old yew trees, not now leading to
anything. This is all there is of the hamlet from which an ancient and
notable family derived its title, the Bolles of Haugh.
_Haugh_ church is a small barn-like building of chalk; the nave
twenty-four feet, and the chancel twenty-one feet long, with an
enormously thick, small, round-headed arch between them. The chancel is
floored with old sepulchral slabs and stone coffin tops, several with
Lombardic lettering, and all apparently of the Bolle or Bolles family who
lived partly at Haugh in the old manor close to the church, and partly at
Thorpe Hall, Louth.
[Sidenote: SIR JOHN BOLLES]
[Sidenote: COLONEL BOLLES AT ALTON]
The family of Bolle seemed to have lived at Bolle Hall, Swineshead, from
the thirteenth century till the close of the reign of Edward IV., 1483,
when, by an intermarriage with the heiress of the Hough family, the elder
branch became settled at Hough or Haugh, near Alford, and one of the
younger branches settled at Gosberkirke (Gosberton) and spelt their name
Bolles. The men of both branches were active both in civil and military
positions. Sir George of Gosberton succeeded to the manor of Scampton,
near Lincoln, from his father-in-law, Sir John Hart, Lord Mayor of
London, 1590. He too became Lord Mayor in 1617, both men being members of
the Grocers’ Company. He was knighted by James I., after withstanding
his majesty in the matter of travelling through the city of London on
a Sunday, on which occasion his conduct somewhat recalls that of Judge
Gascoigne in Shakespeare’s “Henry IV.” He died in 1621, and his monument
is in St. Swithin’s church, London. His son John was made a baronet by
Charles I., and _his_ son George is commemorated on a monument opposite
to that of his grandfather, in a pretty Latin inscription beginning—
Nil opus hos cineres florum decorare corollis;
Flos, hic compositus qui jacet, ipse fuit.
We hear of a Sir George Bolle being killed at Winceby in 1643, fighting
against Cromwell; certainly George’s brother, Sir Robert of Scampton,
was one of the jury in 1660 for trying the regicides, and at the death
of his son, Sir John, in 1714 the title became extinct. The distinctions
of the elder branch, who settled at Haugh, were more military than
civil. Their name also has passed away, their lineal descendants being
named Bush, Ingilby, Bosville and Towne. The earliest monument to this
branch is on a brass plate in Boston Church to Richard Bolle of Haugh,
1591, son of Richard Bolle of Haugh and Maria, daughter and heiress of
John Fitzwilliams of Mablethorpe. He was thrice married, and his only
son Charles died a year before him, 1590, and is commemorated at Haugh.
His daughter Anne married Leonard Cracroft, the others married John and
Leonard Kirkman of Keel. His son Charles, whose mother was a Skipworth of
South Ormsby, had four wives, his first wife a daughter of Ed. Dymoke of
Scrivelsby, and his fourth a daughter of Thomas Dymoke of Friskney. His
only son, John, was the son of number two, Brigitt Fane; and his daughter
Elizabeth of number three, Mary Powtrell. To this son John, there is also
in Haugh Church a well-preserved monument, which shows him kneeling with
his wife, attended by their three sons and five daughters, in the usual
Jacobean style; date 1606, Aet. suæ 46. Sir John built Thorpe Hall, and
was a famous Elizabethan captain. He was at the siege of Cadiz under
Essex, 1596, and had custody of the young lady of high position who goes
by the title of the Spanish Lady or the Green Lady, and whose story is
told in Percy’s “Reliques” in the ballad of “The Spanish Lady’s love for
an Englishman.” Sir John Bolle is the hero of the story. The lady fell
in love with him, but on hearing that he had a wife at home, she retired
to a nunnery and sent rich presents to his wife of tapestry, plate and
jewels, and her picture in a green dress. The jewels are now in the hands
of many of Lady Bolle’s descendants, the necklet of 298 pearls being,
it is said, in the Bosvile family at Ravensfield Park, Yorkshire. The
last warden of Winchester College was called Godfrey Bolles Lee, and
was related to the Bosviles; and, curiously enough, in the Cathedral of
Winchester is a brass plate giving an account of the death of Colonel
John Bolles. It seems that Charles, the elder of the three sons whose
effigies are on Sir John’s monument in the quaint little church of Haugh,
was a Royalist, living at Thorpe Hall, Louth, where he raised a regiment
of foot, which was commanded by his brother John, a soldier of unusual
gallantry. Charles once saved his life when pursued, by hiding under the
bridge at Louth. The regiment was engaged at Edgehill and other places,
and finally cut to pieces in a most bloody engagement inside Alton Church
in Hampshire. Clarendon tells us that Sir William Waller, finding that
Lord Hopton’s troops lay quartered at too great distance from each other,
had, by a night march, come suddenly upon the Royalist forces at Alton.
The horse made good their escape to Winchester, and Colonel Bolles,
who was in command of his own regiment of 500 men, being outnumbered,
retired with some four score men into the church, hoping to defend it
till succour arrived. But the enemy, as he had not had time to barricade
the doors, entered with him, and some sixty of his men were killed
before the rest asked for quarter; this was granted, but Colonel Bolles
refused the offer, and was killed fighting. Alton is seventeen miles from
Winchester, and the little brass plate on the eastern pillar of the north
arcade of the nave in Winchester Cathedral, just where the steps go up to
the choir, has a counterpart in Alton Church. The inscription on it was
composed almost fifty years after the event by a relative who describes
himself M.A., but he does no credit to the learning of the time, for it
is full of errors, both of spelling and of facts; for instance, he calls
the gallant Colonel, Richard instead of John, and gives the date of the
fight as 1641 instead of December, 1643; but it is too quaint a thing not
to be transcribed in full.
[Sidenote: THE WINCHESTER BRASS]
A Memoriall.
For this renowned Martialist Richard Boles of ye Right
Worshipful family of the Bolleses in Linkhornsheire; collonell
of a ridgment of Foot of 1300 who for his gratious King Charles
ye first did Wounders att the Battell of Edgehill: his last
action, to omit all others, was at Alton in this County of
Soughthampton, was sirprised by five or six thousand of the
Rebells, which caused him there Quartered, to fly to the
church, with near fourscore of his men, who there fought them
six or seven houers, and then the Rebells breaking in upon
him he slew with his sword six or seven of them, and then was
slayne himselfe, with sixty of his men about him.
1641
His Gratiouse Souveraigne, hearing of his death, gave him
his high comendation in ye pationate expression. Bring me a
Moorning Scarffe; i have Lost one of the best Comanders in this
Kingdome.
Alton will tell you of that famous Fight
Which ye man made and bade this world goodnight,
His Verteous life feared not Mortalyty,
His body might, his Vertues cannot die.
Because his blood was there so nobly spent
This is his Tombe, that church his Monument.
Ricardus Boles Wiltoniensis in Art Mag:
Composuit Posuitque dolens
An Dom 1689.
A somewhat similar bit of spelling is this from a private diary:—
“The iiii day of Sept 1551 ded my lade Admerell wyffe in Linkolneshire
and ther bered.”
The third brother, Edward, died and was buried at Louth, 1680 A.D., at
the age of seventy-seven. He left £600 to purchase land, the rents “to
be divided among the poorest people of Louth at Christmas, Easter and
Whitsuntide for ever, and to be disposed of ‘in other charitable and
pious uses for the good of the said Toune.’” The income of the bequest is
now worth £85 a year.
[Sidenote: THE GREEN LADY]
Sir Charles, the elder brother, had a son and a grandson called John, the
last of the name. This John’s half-sister, Elizabeth, whose mother was a
Vesci, married Thomas Bosvile, rector of Ufford, and was buried at Louth
in 1740; their daughter Bridget also marrying a Bosvile. The children
of Bridget’s elder sister Elizabeth married into the families of the
Ingilbys and the Massingberds, while another sister, Margaret, married
James Birch, James Birch’s daughter married a Lee, and his grandson,
Captain Thos. Birch, assumed the name of Bosvile and sold Thorpe Hall.
He died in 1829. Sir Charles also had a daughter Elizabeth, who married
Thomas Elye of Utterby, whose granddaughter Sarah married Richard Wright
of Louth, whence are descended the Wrights of Wrangle. Canon Wright, her
great great grandson, has a picture of this Sarah Elye in which she is
represented as wearing a ring which was one of the Spanish jewels, some
of which are in possession of the Canon’s family now. The picture of the
Green Lady was unfortunately sold at the Thorpe Hall sale, and it is said
that another small picture of her, painted in the corner of a portrait of
Sir John Bolles by Zucchero, was lost when the picture was restored and
considerably cut down, in the last century.
CHAPTER XXVI
THE MARSH CHURCHES OF EAST LINDSEY
West Theddlethorpe—Saltfleetby—All Saints—Skidbrook—South
Somercotes—Grainthorpe—Marsh Chapel.
THE PLAGUE-STONE
An inconspicuous little byway starts from near Alford station and runs
parallel with the line about a mile northwards to _Tothby_, where it
bends round and loses itself in a network of lanes near _South Thoresby_.
At Tothby, under a weeping ash tree on the lawn in front of the old Manor
House farm, is an interesting relic of bygone days. It is a stone about a
yard square and half a yard thick, once shaped at the corners and with a
socket in it. Evidently it is the base of an old churchyard, wayside, or
market cross of pre-reformation times. And it has been put to use later
as a plague-stone, having been for that purpose placed on its edge and
half buried probably, and a hole seven inches by five, and two and a half
inches deep, cut in the upper side. This was to hold vinegar into which
the townspeople put the money they gave for the farm produce brought from
the country in times of plague.
The great desire was to avoid contact with possibly plague-stricken
people. So the country folk brought their poultry, eggs, etc., laid
them out at fixed prices near the stone and then retired. Then the town
caterer came out and took what was wanted, placing the money in the
vinegar, and on his retiring in turn, the vendors came and took their
money, which was disinfected by its vinegar bath. The buyers, of course,
had to pay honestly or the country folk would cut off the supplies, and
_they_ probably appointed one of their number as salesman.
[Sidenote: THE PLAGUE-STONE]
On the whole the plan is said to have answered well enough, and the
stone is an interesting relic of the time. There is one _in situ_ at
Winchester, not so big as this, and now built in as part of the basis
to the Plague Monument outside the West Gate of the city. It is, I
believe, plain to distinguish, being of a darker colour than the rest
of the monument; but you cannot now see the hole in it any more. That
stone was used in 1666, the year after the great plague in London. The
Croft register speaks of 1630 as the plague year, but a plague seems to
have visited Partney in 1616; at Louth 754 people died in eight months
in 1631. At Alford the plague year was 1630. On the 2nd of July in that
year the vicar, opposite the entry of Maria Brown’s burial has written
“Incipit pestis” (the plague begins), and between this date and the end
of February, 1631, 132 out of a population of about 1,000, died, the
average number of burials for Alford being 19 per annum, so that the
rate was 100 above normal for the nineteen months; indeed, for the rest
of 1631 only eight burials are registered in ten months. July and August
were the worst months, six deaths occurring in one family in eleven days.
It has been said that the stone was placed on the top of Miles-Cross
hill, whence the folk from Spilsby and the villages of the Wolds, when
they brought their produce, could look down on the plague-stricken town
from a safe distance. But that would be a long pull for the poor Alford
people, and it is more likely that it was placed near where the railway
now crosses the high road; certainly the Winchester stone was barely 100
yards from the Gate.
We can now go back to Alford and start again on the Louth road. To get
to the fine Marsh churches of the east Lindsey district, four miles out
we turn off to the right near Withern, and pass two little churches on
the border of the district called _Strubby_ and _Maltby-le-Marsh_. Each
of these has, like _Huttoft_, a remarkable font, but that at _Maltby_
is extraordinarily good—angels at each corner are holding open books,
and their wings join and cover the bowl of the font, below an apostle
guards each corner of a square base. There is in this church, too, a
cross-legged effigy of a knight. In _Strubby_ are some good poppy-head
bench ends and a fourteenth century effigy without a head, and on the
south wall near the door a curious inscription in old English letters
hard to decipher. There is also a small re-painted Jacobean monument
with effigies of Alderman W. Bailett, aged ninety-nine, his two wives and
nine children.
[Illustration: _Mablethorpe Church._]
[Sidenote: MABLETHORPE]
The whole of the region between the Alford-and-Louth road and the coast
is a network of roads with dykes on either side, which never go straight
to any place, but turn repeatedly at right angles, so that you often have
to go right away from the point you are aiming at. That point is always a
church steeple standing up with its cluster of trees from the wide extent
of surrounding pasture-land. The only direct road in the district is that
which runs north-east to _Mablethorpe_, close on the sea. This is quite
a frequented watering-place. Here, as at Trusthorpe and Sutton, the sea
has swallowed up the original church, but the present one, half a mile
inland, has some sixteenth century tombs and brasses; one notable one of
Elizabeth Fitzwilliam, 1522, which represents her with long, flowing
hair as in that of Lady Willoughby in Tattershall Church, and Sir Robert
Dymoke at Scrivelsby. There is here a seaside open-air school for invalid
children.
[Sidenote: THEDDLETHORPE]
Three miles north is _West Theddlethorpe_ (All Saints), one of the
largest and finest of all the Marsh churches. Here, as elsewhere,
the green-sand, patched with brick, on which the sea air favours the
growth of grey lichen, gives a delightful colour to the tower. The
battlemented parapets are of Ancaster stone, and were once surmounted at
short intervals by carved pinnacles, and the nave gable, as at Louth,
is beautifully pierced and worked, with carved bosses and rosettes set
in the lower moulding. There are five two-light clerestory windows on
either side, and inside are many good bench ends, both old and new,
and a Perpendicular chancel screen with doors, and two chantries, each
still keeping its altar slab in position, and having good oak screens
ornamented with rich and unusual Renaissance carved open-work panels. In
one of these chantries is a shallow recess with a beautiful carved stone
canopy which once held a memorial tablet. A list of the vicars from 1241
to 1403 gives first the name of William Le Moyne (the monk), and in 1349
we have Nicholas de Spaigne on the nomination of Edward III. An important
little brass of Robert Hayton, 1424, shows, as Mr. Jeans tells us, the
latest instance of “Mail Camail.” In the churchyard is a most singular
tombstone to Rebecca French, 1862, the stump of a willow carved in stone
about four feet high with broken branches and—symbol of decay—a large
toadstool growing from the trunk.
Three miles further north, and still close by the sea bank, we come to
the church of _Saltfleetby-All-Saints_. A most provoking habit prevails,
possibly with reason, but none the less trying to those who come to
see the churches, of keeping the keys of the locked-up church at some
distance off, even when there is a cottage close at hand. The church is
in a sadly ruinous condition, and the picturesque porch literally falling
to bits. On it is a shield bearing a crucifixion. The tower, which leans
badly to the north-west, has two Early English lancet lights to the west
and double two-light windows above. The gargoyles are very fine, and
cut, as usual, in Ancaster stone. In the north aisle are two beautiful
three-light windows with square heads and embattled transoms. There are
some Norman pillars and capitals, also a good rood screen and a handsome
Decorated font set on a reversed later font. This church, like so many
in the Marsh, is only half seated, though even so it is too big for the
population, as probably it always has been.
Within a mile to the north-east we pass _Saltfleetby-St.-Clements_,
a church which has been moved from a site two fields off, and very
carefully rebuilt in 1885, and shows an arcade of five small arches
beautifully moulded resting on massive circular columns. It has also a
good font on a central shaft with clustered columns round it, and in
the vestry, part of a very early cross shaft. Hence we soon reach the
sea at _Saltfleet_ on a tidal channel, as the name indicates. Here is a
remarkable old manor-house.
The parish church of Saltfleet is at _Skidbroke_, which stands in the
fields a mile inland. In the churchyard is a tall granite cross in memory
of Canon Overton of Peterborough. The church is of Ancaster stone which
has a much longer life than the green-sand, but the parapets of the nave
are of brick now, with stone coping. The belfry of all these churches is
approached by rough and massive ladders. In the west of the tower is a
good doorway. The chancel is a poor one.
Two miles through the rich meadows brings us to _South Somercotes_,
remarkable as having a spire, but of later date than the tower. Here the
chancel is absolutely bare, with painted dado and red tiled floor and
no fittings of any kind. It looks something like a G.N.R. waiting-room,
without the table. There is a very elegant rood screen, and an
exceptionally tall belfry ladder or “stee,” also, as in the two churches
just visited, ancient tablets in memory of the family of Freshney. The
family still flourishes; and at the Alford foal show, September 1912,
a Freshney of South Somercotes carried off several prizes. Unlike
Skidbrooke, the church has houses and even shops close to it. We saw
here a fell-monger’s trolley drive up with a strange assorted cargo from
the station of Saltfleetby-St.-Peters. There were several packages and,
sitting amongst them, several people all huddled together. It stopped at
the village corner to deliver a long parcel draped in sacking—it was a
coffin.
[Sidenote: THE GRAINTHORPE BRASS]
A few miles north is _Grainthorpe_, the old roof lately renovated. The
whole church well cared for, and in the chancel a mutilated but once
very beautiful brass, with a foliated cross, probably in memory of
Stephen-le-See, who was the vicar about 1400. The stem is gone, the head
shows some very delicate work, and the base stands on a rock in the sea
with five various fishes depicted swimming. It was once seven feet high;
and, if perfect, would be the most beautiful brass cross extant.
[Sidenote: THE HARPHAM TABLET]
Three miles north we reach the fine church of _Marsh Chapel_. This
was once a hamlet of _Fulstow_, four miles to the west on the road
to Ludborough. It is Perpendicular from the foundation. Here, as at
Grainthorpe, is a rood screen partly coloured, the lower part being new.
The church is seated throughout in oak, and evidently used by a large
congregation. The capitals of both arcades are battlemented. On the
chancel wall is an exquisite little alabaster tablet put up in 1628,
representing Sir Walter Harpham, his wife and little daughter—quite a
gem of monumental sculpture. The parents died in 1607 and 1617. The
lofty tower has a turret staircase with a spirelet—a rare feature in
Lincolnshire, though common in Somersetshire—and the church is all built
of Ancaster stone.
Going north we reach _North Cotes_ and Tetney lock, where we can see
part of the Roman sea bank, though Tetney haven now is almost two miles
distant. The Louth river, which is cut straight and turned into the Louth
Navigation Canal, runs out here.
The by-road we have been following from the south ends here; but a branch
running due west passes to _Tetney_ village and thence joins the Louth
and Grimsby highway at Holton-le-Clay.
CHAPTER XXVII
LINCOLNSHIRE FOLKSONG
Dan Gunby and The Ballad of the Swan.
There is no great quantity of native verse in this county, and children’s
songs of any antiquity are by no means so common with us as they are in
Northumbria, but there is _The Lincolnshire Poacher_ with its refrain,
“For ’tis my delight of a shiny night in the season of the year,” the
marching tune of the Lincolnshire Regiment; and there is an old quatrain
here and there connected with some town, such as that of Boston, and that
is all.
It was my luck, however, to know, fifty years ago, a man who wrote
genuine ballad verses, some of which I took down from his lips. They
have never been printed before, but seem to me to be full of interest,
for the man who wrote them was a typical east-coast native, a manifest
Dane, as so many of these men are—unusually tall, upright, with long nose
and grey eyes, and a most independent, almost proud, bearing. He was a
solitary man, and made his living, as his earliest forefathers might have
done, by taking fish and wild fowl as best he could; and, for recreation,
drinking and singing and playing his beloved fiddle. It seemed as if the
runes of his Scandinavian ancestors were in his blood, so ardently did
he enjoy music and so strongly, in spite of every difficulty, for he had
had little education, did he feel the impulse to put the deeds he admired
into verse.
[Sidenote: R. L. NETTLESHIP]
It is something to be thankful for that, in spite of railways and Board
Schools, original characters are still to be found in Lincolnshire. They
were more abundant two generations ago, but they are still to be met
with, and one of the most remarkable that I have personally known was
this typical east-coaster, whose name was Dan Gunby. It was in September,
1874, when I was a house master at Uppingham, under the ever-famous
Edward Thring, that my dear friend, R. L. Nettleship, then a fellow of
Balliol, came to our house at Halton, and after a day or two there, we
passed by Burgh over the marsh to Skegness, eleven miles off.
[Illustration: _Southend, Boston._]
We were making for the old thatched house by the Roman bank, for this
belonged to our family, and here, with one old woman to “do” for us,
and with the few supplies we had brought with us and the leg of a
Lincolnshire sheep in the larder, we felt we could hold out for a week
whilst we read, unmolested by even a passing tradesman. Sundays we spent
at Halton, walking up on Saturday and down again on Monday, after which
we took off our boots for the rest of the week.
[Sidenote: DAN GUNBY]
One night about ten o’clock, as we were sitting over our books, a step
was heard on the plank bridge, and a loud knock resounded through the
house. I went to the door and opened it. It was pitch dark, and from the
darkness above my head, for Dan was a tall man, came a voice: “Ah’ve
browt ye sum dooks. Ye knaw me, Dan Gunby.” We gratefully welcomed them
as a relief from the sheep, and after a talk we agreed to go over and see
Dan in his home at Gibraltar Point, where the Somersby Brook, “a rivulet
then a river,” runs out into Wainfleet haven. Accordingly, on the 12th
of September, 1874, we set off, going along on the flat dyke top for
four miles till we came to what seemed the end of the habitable world.
Here the level, muddy flat stretched out far into the distant shallow
sea, groups of wading shore-birds were visible here and there, and an
occasional curlew flew, with his melancholy cry, overhead, or a lonely
sea-gull passed us—
“With one waft of the wing.”
We came to a small river channel with steep, slimy banks; just beyond
it was an old boat half roofed over, and, sitting on it, was our friend
Dan mending a net. We shouted to ask how we were to get to him, and he
said, “Cum along o’er, bottoms sound.” We pulled off our boots and got
down without much difficulty, but to get up, “Hic labor, hoc opus est.”
But Dan shouted encouragement: “Now then, stick your toäs in, and goo
it.” We did ‘goo it,’ and soon landed by the old boat, and sitting on it,
we asked him if he always slept there, and what he did for a living. He
answered “Yees, this is my plaäce, an’ it’s snug, an all. Ye see I hev a
bit of a stoäve here.”
“Is that your duck-shout (the name for a sort of canoe for duck shooting)
and gun?”
“Yees, ye sees I’m a bit of a gunner, an’ a bit of a fisherman, an’ a bit
of a fiddler.”
“And a bit of a poet, too, aren’t you, Dan?”
“Well, I puts things down sometimes in the winter evenings like.”
“About your shooting, isn’t it?”
“Yees, moästlins.”
“And you have got tunes to them?”
“Yees. It’s easy to maäke the tunes up o’ the fiddle, but the words is a
straänge hard job oftens.”
“Well now, will you let us hear one of them?”
“To be sewer I will,” and he took his fiddle and sat on the gunwale,
while we listened to the following:—
It was in the iambic metre—which befits a ballad—with occasional anapæsts.
[Sidenote: THE SWAN]
[Sidenote: YOUNG JIM HALL]
“It’s called The Swan this ’ere un,” he said, and, with a preliminary
flourish on the fiddle, he went off.
I should say that we got the words in his own writing afterwards spelt as
I give them.
THE SWAN.
Now it Gentel men hall cum lisen to me,
And ile tell you of a spre,
When Sam and Tom Gose in there boats,
Tha never dise a Gre.
CHORUS.
For the Halls they are upon the spre,
Tha’ll do the best tha can,
Am when tha goä to seä my boys
Tha meäns to shoot a Swan.
Then a storking down clay-’ole,[14]
And laying as snug as tha can,
For it’ Slap Bang went both the guns
And down come the Swan.
Now Sam and Tom ’as got this Swan,
Tha do not now repent;
Tha will pull up to Fosedyke Brige,
And sell him to Hary Kemp.
Now Sam and Tom they got a shere
Tha dow not see no Feer,
Tha will call too the Public-house,
An git a Galling of Beer.
Sam says to Tom here’s luck my lad,
We will drink hall we can;
And then wele pull down Spalding sett
To loke for another Swan.
There’s young Jim Hall he has a fine gun
Tha say it weighs a ton,
And he will pull down Spalding Set
To have a bit of fun.
CHORUS.
For the Halls they are upon the spre,
Tha’ll do the best tha can,
And when tha goä to seä my boys
Tha means to shoot a swan.
And when tha hev got side by side
Tha moastly scheme and plan,
Tha meän to shoot either duck or goose
Or else another swan.
Jim, Bill an Tom was storking
At thousands of geese in a line,
Tha fired three guns before daylight
An killed ninety-nine.
(My eye! they did an’ all.)
The old man larned the boys to shoot
Without any fere or doubt,
And young Jim Hall he was the man
Who made the Gun and Shout.[15]
There’s young Ted Hall he’s fond of life,
His diet is beäf and creäm
He cares nothing about shooting
He’d rayther goä by steäm.
Captain Rice, he’s deäd an gone,
We hope he is at rest,
All his delight was guns and boäts,
And he always did his best.
He was a hearty old cock
As ever sailed on the sea.
He has paid for many a galling of ale
When he was in company.
CHORUS.
For the Halls tha are upon the spre,
Tha’ll do the best tha can,
An when tha goä to seä my boys
Tha meäns to shoot a swan.
[Sidenote: CAPTAIN RICE]
Dan paused for some time after he had finished the ballad, and then said
with much feeling in look and voice, “Captain Rice, poor chap, he died
after I’d gotten yon lines finished, and I had to alter them, ye knaw. It
took me three weeks to get ’em altered.”
The captain was well remembered; he had “paid for many a galling of ale.”
But the family that Dan most admired were the Halls, the old man and his
three eldest sons—Jim, Bill and Tom. Young Ted he despised; he cared
nothing about shooting, he would rather sit in a train!
He tells in two other short ballads of how they hunted the seal on the
bar or on the long sand, and there is a poetic touch in the way he makes
the seals talk, and in the description of their eyes and teeth.
But “The Swan” is Dan’s great achievement, and is a real good folk song,
and has lines with the true ballad ring. “Down come the swan” is a fine
expressive line, and “He was a hearty old cock, As ever sailed on the
sea” has a ring in it like _Sir Patrick Spens_.
When Dan came to the astonishing kill of ninety-nine he never failed to
make the ejaculation I have given above; the geese were Brent geese and
were feeding in a creek or wet furrow. There was a big gun used in the
“Gruft holes” or deep channels in the sands going seaward, where the
gunner sat waiting for the “flighting” of the ducks. This was called a
“raille,” and was fired from the shoulder. The gun which weighed a ton is
a poetic exaggeration; but the old duck-shout guns were more than one man
would care to lift, and about six to eight feet long. The man lay on a
board to sight and fire this miniature cannon or demi-culverin, which was
loaded to the muzzle, and the rusty piece of ordnance shot back with the
recoil underneath him; had it been made fast to the canoe or duck-shout
it would have torn the little boat to bits.
[Sidenote: THE SEALS]
The ballads of the seals are as follows:—
SEALS ON THE BAR.
1.
There is two seäls upon the bar,
Tha lay like lumps of lead.
When tha see Sam and Tom coming
Tha begins to shaäke their head.
CHORUS.
For the Halls tha are upon the look out
Tha love to see a seäl,
An when tha git well in my boys
He’s bound to taäste a meäl.
2.
The owd seäl said unto his wife,
Yon’s sumthing coming sudden,
We must soon muster out o’ this
Or we shall get plum-pudden.
CHORUS.
For the Halls they are upon the look out
Tha love to see a seäl,
An when they git well in my boys
He’s bound to taäste a meäl.
SEÄLS ON THE LONG SAND.
1.
Bill and Jim was shoving down the North
And keepin close to the land,
Jim says to Bill, we’ll pull across,
Right ower to the Long Sand.[16]
CHORUS, _after each verse_.
For the Halls tha are upon the look out,
Tha love to see a seäl,
An when tha git well in my boys,
He’s bound to taäste a meäl.
2.
And when tha hed got ower
Tha hed a cheerful feel.
Bill says to Jim “What greät heäd’s yon?”
It must be a monstrous seäl.
3.
For his eyes like fire they did shine
An his teeth was long an white,
Then slap bang went boäth the guns,
An he wished ’em boäth good-night.
4.
Well done, my lad! We’ve hit ’im hard,
He’ll niver git ashore,
For I knaw his head will ake to-day
And ’twill be very sore.
CHORUS.
For the Halls tha are upon the look out,
Tha love to see a seäl,
An when tha git well in my boys
He’s bound to taäste a meäl.
Seals are more common on this coast than one would think. Only this
autumn, 1913, great complaints have been made by the fishermen of the
destruction of soles, etc., in the ‘Wash’ by the increased number of
these unwelcome visitors.
[Sidenote: NORTH COUNTRY HUMOUR]
[Sidenote: NATURE’S POETS]
Dan Gunby, in spite of his fiddling and attendance at all the dances in
the neighbourhood, was not of a jovial nature. His life was hard and his
outlook on it was always serious, and any humour which he had was of the
dry order, which is so frequent in the northern counties. Terse remarks
with a touch of humour, sly or grim, he doubtless showed at times, but a
real hearty laugh he would seldom allow himself. We find this same almost
unconscious habit of saying a biting thing in a sly way frequent in the
counties north of Lincolnshire, as for instance, when in Westmorland
a man meeting a friend says, “I hear Jock has gotten marriet” and the
rejoinder, which expresses so much in so few words, both about the man in
question and the subject of matrimony generally, is “Ah’m gled o’ that,
ah niver liked Jock.” Another time, a man meets a ‘pal’ and for a bit
of news says, “We’m gotten a chain for oor Mayor,” and the answer, “Han
yo? We let yon beggar of ourn go loose” is far more funny than was ever
intended. But Gunby and his likes, of whom there are more in the regions
of the hills and fells than elsewhere, have not only the seriousness
of those who live solitary and have leisure to do a deal o’ thinking,
but dwelling apart in places where they can commune with Nature and the
stars they get the poetic touch from their surroundings. The mountain
shepherd goes up on to the heights and spends long hours with his dog
and sheep. He marks the great clouds move by, and listens to the voice
of the streams. He knows “the silence that is in the starry sky;” the
great constellations are his companions; he sees the rising moon, and the
splendours of the dawn and sunset. Those sights which fill us with such
delight and wonder when beheld now and then in a lifetime, are before his
eyes repeatedly. Now he watches the storm near at hand in all its fury,
the thunder echoing round him from crag to crag; soon the clouds roll
off and disclose the brilliant arch of the rainbow across the glistening
valley, each perfect in its different way. At one time he must be out
on the slopes sparkling with snow, at another his heart gladdens at the
approach of spring, and he feels himself one with it all. And so the
changing seasons of the year cannot fail to touch him more than most
men, and what the heart feels the lips will strive to utter. In the same
way Dan Gunby used to watch the wide sunsets across the marsh, and see
the floods of golden light on the shore, and the ebbing and flowing of
the far-spread tide about his anchored cabin. He saw, at one time, the
ripples crested with gold by the sun’s last rays, at another the red orb
rising from the sea on a clear morning; or, in the mist which closed him
in, he listened to the cries of the sea-birds sweeping by invisible.
At times, when the wind was up and the tide high, he heard the roar of
the waves dashed on the sand; or, upon a calm night, he looked out on
a gently moving water led by the changing moon. There were always some
voices of the night, and usually some visions both at eve and morn; and
with his observant eye and ear, and his leisure to reflect, while Nature
was his one companion, how could he fail to be in some sort a poet?
I lately heard of a shepherd or crofter who was quite a case in point;
but as he was not a Lincolnshire native but lived in the Scotch Lowlands,
I put the account of him and his poetry, which, by the help of a Scotch
lady, I have succeeded in collecting, small in quantity but some of
it very good, I think, in quality, into an appendix at the end of the
volume.
CHAPTER XXVIII
THE MARSH CHURCHES IN SOUTH LINDSEY
Alford—Markby—Hogsthorpe—Addlethorpe—Ingoldmells—Winthorpe—Skegness—The
Bond Epitaph—Croft—The Parish Books—Burgh-le-Marsh—Palmer
Epitaph—Bratoft—The Armada—Gunby—The Massingberd Brasses.
Starting from _Alford_, a little town with several low thatched houses in
the main street, and a delightful old thatched ivy-clad manor, we will
first look into the church which stands on a mound in the centre of the
town, to see the very fine rood screen. Before reaching the south porch
with its sacristy or priests’ room above, and its good old door, we pass
an excellent square-headed window. Inside, the bold foliage carving on
the capitals at once arrests the eye. The pillars, as in most of these
churches, are lofty, slender and octagonal. The steps to the rood loft
remain, and a squint to the altar in the north aisle chapel. On the other
side is a carved Jacobean pulpit of great beauty, east of which is a
low-side window, and east of that again a tomb with recumbent alabaster
figures of Sir Robert Christopher and his wife, date 1668, in perfect
condition.
From Alford a road goes north to Louth, branching to the right three
miles out, to run to Mablethorpe, the favourite seaside resort of the
Tennysons when living at Somersby. But we will follow the road to
_Bilsby_, where Professor Barnard keeps his unapproachable collection of
Early English water-colours. From here we can reach _Markby_, a curious
thatched chapel standing inside a moat, and now disused. Then we can
look in at _Huttoft_ to see the extremely fine font which resembles that
at Covenham St. Mary, and Low Toynton, near Horncastle; after which,
passing by _Mumby_, we will make for the first of the typical Marsh
churches at _Hogsthorpe_.
Markby vicarage goes with _Hannah-cum-Hagnaby_ rectory. Once there was
an Austin or Black Friars priory at Markby, and at Hagnaby—a hamlet in
Hannah or Hannay—an abbey of Premonstratensian or White Canons, which
was founded in 1175 by Herbert de Orreby and dedicated to St. Thomas the
Martyr.
[Illustration: _Markby Church._]
The registers at _Markby_ are among the earliest in the kingdom,
beginning in 1558, those in Hannay dating from 1559. The first year of
their institution was 1838.
[Sidenote: THE HUTTOFT FONT]
The _Huttoft_ font is of the fourteenth century, and is four feet eight
inches high, so it needs a step like those at Wrangle, Benington, and
Frieston, and that at Skendleby. On the bowl are represented the Holy
Trinity, the Virgin and Child, the Virgin holding a bunch of lilies, and
the Child an apple. On six of the panels are the Apostles in pairs, as at
Covenham St. Mary. The under part has angel figures all round supporting
the bowl. The shaft has eight panels with figures of popes, bishops, and
holy women, and at the base are symbols of the four evangelists. The
string-courses show three different roofs to the nave.
[Sidenote: HOGSTHORPE]
_Hogsthorpe_, like most of the churches in the neighbourhood, is built
of the soft local green-sand, which is found near the edge of the marsh
where the Wolds die away into the level. The tower shows patches of
brickwork which give a warm and picturesque appearance. The south porch
is here, as is the rule, built of a harder stone, and is handsome and
interesting. A pair of oblong stones of no great size are built in on
either side above the arch with an inscription in old English letters,
beginning, oddly enough, both in this church and in one at Winthorpe a
few miles off, with the right hand stone and finishing on the left. The
words are, “Orate pro animabus Fratrum et Sororum Guilde Sᶜᵗᵃᵉ Mariæ
hujus Ecclesiæ quorum expensis et sumptibus fabricata est haec porticus.”
The church has had its roof renewed in pine wood. It also has the worst
coloured window glass I have ever seen, an error of local piety.[17] The
registers begin in 1558.
[Sidenote: ADDLETHORPE]
From here the road, with countless right-angled turns, runs between the
reedy dykes to the Perpendicular church of _Addlethorpe_ (St. Nicolas).
Here the south porch is unusually good, with figures of angels on the
buttresses and beautiful foliage work carved on the parapet. On the apex
is a well-cut crucifix and, as at Somersby, on the back is a small figure
of the Virgin and Child. A large holy-water stoup stands just within the
door. There is a window in the porch, also a niche and a slab with the
following inscription:—
The Cryst that suffered
Grette pangs and hard
hafe mercy on the sowle
of John Godard
That thys porche made
and many oder thynges dede
There-for Jsu Cryst
Qwyte hym hys mede.
Over the buttresses of the north aisle are gargoyles holding scrolls; one
has on it “Of Gods saying comes no ill,” another—
God : for : ihs : m’̅c̅y : bryng : he̅ : to : blys :
Yᵗ : ha̅ : p̅d̅ : to : ys :
Cut with a knife on the western pilaster of the porch is—
“January 1686
Praise God.”
The glory of this church is its wealth of old wood work, in which it is
not surpassed by any in the county, though its neighbour, Winthorpe, runs
it hard.
[Illustration: _Addlethorpe and Ingoldmells._]
The chancel here, as at the older Decorated church of Ingoldmells, which
is within half a mile, has been pulled down, and the rood screen acts
as a reredos. There are two extremely good parclose screens, and old
benches with carved ends throughout the church. Another fine oak screen
goes across the tower arch, inscribed, “Orate pro animabus Johannis
Dudeck Senior et uxor̅ ejus.” The noble roof is the original one.
The pulley-block for lowering the rood light is still visible on the
easternmost tie-beam but one, as it is also at Winthorpe and Grimoldby.
A new rafter at the west end has painted on it, “Struck by fireball June
27, 1850.”
The Boston wool trade is alluded to in the epitaph “Hic jacet Ricardus
Ward qdm. Mr̅ctor Stapali Calais MCCCCXXXIII.”
A slab in the north aisle to Thomas Ely, 1783, has a singular inscription
on it:—
“Plain in his form but rich he was in mind,
Religious, quiet, honest, meek and kind.”
Evidently a real good fellow though he _was_ plain.
[Sidenote: CHURCHWARDEN’S ACCOUNTS]
The following extracts from the churchwarden’s accounts between the years
1540 and 1580 are curious.
Itm payde to the Scolemʳ (Schoolmaster) of Allforde
for wryting of Thoms Jacson Wylle iiijᵈ
Itm payde unto Thoms Wryghte for dressynge
the crosse ijᵈ
Itm payde for a horsse skyne for bellstryngs ijˢ iᵈ
Itm payde to the players iiijᵈ
Itm reseuyd (received) for ye Sepuller lyghte
gatheryd in ye cherche iiˢ iᵈ
Itm reseuyd for ye wyttworde[18] of Rycharde Grene xijᵈ
Itm Receuyd of Anthony Orby for his wyffs yereday[19] xijᵈ
Itm payde un to Wyllm Craycrofte for the rente
of ye Kyrke platte ijˢ vᵈ
Itm payde for washing the corporaxys[20] iiijᵈ
Itm payd for a ynglyghe sultʳ [an English
psalter] xxᵈ
Receuyd of Thomas Thorye for o̅n̅ thrughestone iijˢ iiijᵈ
Itm payde for the Sepulcre xˢ
Itm for a paire of Sensors xˢ iiijᵈ
Receuyd of John Curtus for his Wyff lying in ye
churche viˢ viijᵈ
Receuyd[21] of ye said John for o̅n̅ thrughstone xxᵈ
It Recd for ye sowll of John Dodyke xiiiˢ
It Recd for ye sowll of Syr Gregory Wylk viᵈ
Impmus [In primis] payd for certeffyenge of
ye Rodloffe xijˢ
Itm payd for dyssygerenge [_query_ dressing] of
ye Rod loffte iijˢ iiijᵈ
It given to ye men of mumbye chappelle for
carryinge of ye lytle belle to Lincolne xijᵈ
It Layde oute for a lytle booke of prayer for
Wednesdays and frydayes iijᵈ
The church has six bells.
From the account of the charities left in Addlethorpe we find that in
1554 a gift of land was sold for £4 an acre, but in 1653 an acre situated
in Steeping let for 15_s._
[Sidenote: INGOLDMELLS]
The adjoining parish with its mellifluous name of _Ingoldmells_,
(pronounced Ingomells), has had its suffix derived from the Norse _melr_,
said to mean the curious long grass of the sandhills. It might perhaps
be more correctly considered as the same suffix which we have on the
Norse-settled Cumbrian coast at Eskmeals, or Meols, where it is said
to mean a sandy hill or dune, a name which would well fit in with the
locality here. Thus the whole name would mean the sand-dunes of Ingulf,
a Norse invader of the ninth century. A farmer we met at Winthorpe, next
parish to Ingoldmells, alluded to these sandhills when he said, “It is a
sträange thing, wi’ all yon sand nobbut häfe a mile off, that we cant hav
nowt but this mucky owd cläy hereabouts: not fit for owt.” But the Romans
found the clay very useful for making their great embankment along the
coast.
_Ingoldmells_ church, though good, is not so fine as Addlethorpe; but
it has a very interesting little brass, dated 1520, to “William Palmer
wyth ye stylt,” a very rare instance of an infirmity being alluded to on
a brass. The brass shows a crutched stick at his side. The porch has a
quatrefoil opening on either side, and a niche; and a curious apse-like
line of stones in the brick paving goes round all but the east side
of the fine front. Round the base of the churchyard cross is a later
inscription cut in 1600, J. O. Clerk. “Christus solus mihi salus,” and
figures run round three sides of the base, beginning on the north 1, 2,
3; and on the east 4, 5, 6; none on the south, but on the west 5, 6,
7, 8, 9, at the corner 10; and again on the north, 11, 12. Doubtless
it was a form of sundial, the cross shaft throwing its shadow in the
direction of the figures. Of the four bells one has fallen and lies on
the belfry floor. One has on it, according to Oldfield, “Wainfleet and
the Wapentake of Candleshoe, 1829,” “Catarina vocata sum rosa _pulsata_
mundi” (I am called Catherine, the beaten rose of the world); and on
another is the rhyme—
“John Barns churchwarden being then alive
Caused us to be cast 1705:”
At Partney a bell has the same Catarina legend, but with _dulcata_ (=
sweet) instead of _pulsata_. S and C are often interchanged, and I think
the ‘p’ is really a ‘d’ upside down on the Ingoldmells bell, especially
as the bell is of about the same date and was also cast by the same
man—Penn of Peterborough. I must admit, however, that _pulsata_ on a bell
with a clapper has something to be said for it; still, _dulcata_ (sweet)
is the obviously proper epithet for rose.
[Illustration: _The Roman Bank at Winthorpe._]
[Sidenote: THE SEA BANKS]
[Sidenote: RICH OAK CARVING]
From this church the road runs to the sea bank near Chapel, and gets
quite close to it. You can walk up the sandy path amongst the tall
sand-grass and the grey-leaved buckthorn, set with sharp thorns and a
profusion of lovely orange berries, till from the top you look over to
the long brown sands and the gleaming shore, where a retiring tide is
tumbling the cream-coloured breakers of a brown sea. Returning to the
road we go for some distance along the old Roman bank, which we leave
before reaching Skegness in order to get to _Winthorpe_ (_St. Mary_).
This Decorated church was restored in 1881 by the untiring energy of
“Annie Walls of Boothby,” but not so as to spoil its old woodwork, which
is remarkably fine. In the body of the church all the seats have their
old carved fifteenth century bench ends, and in the chancel are four
elaborately carved stall-ends. In one of these, amidst a mass of foliage,
St. Hubert is represented kneeling, as in Albert Dürer’s picture, before
a stag who has a crucifix between his antlers, from which the Devil, who
appears just behind him, in human shape but horned, is turning away. The
poppyhead above this panel is exquisitely carved with oak leaves and
acorns, and little birds, with manikins climbing after them. The old
roof, with the rood-light pulley-block visible on one of the tie-beams,
still remains, and the rood screen, too, though its doors have been
foolishly transferred to another screen at the west end, and ought to be
put back in their place; and at the end of each aisle, as at Addlethorpe,
are good parclose screens. Within one of these, the roof of the north
aisle has a painted pattern on the rafters and good carved bosses once
painted and gilt.
The seventeen steps to the rood loft are all there, also an aumbrey; and
we are told that one of the chantries was founded and endowed by Walter
De Friskney, 1316, and dedicated to St. James.
In the south wall of the tower is a singular fireplace, originally used
for baking the wafers.
In the north chantry is an altar slab with three consecration crosses
on it, and a sepulchral slab to “Ricardus Arglys (Argles?), Presbyter,
De Bynington” (near Boston) who died on the 20th of November, 1497; and
there are, in the nave, brasses to Richard Barowe with his wife Batarick
and their three children, 1505, and to Robert Palmer, 1515, doubtless a
relative of “W. Palmer with ye stylt” in Ingoldmells.
The inscription on the former is “Richard Barowe sumtyme marchant of
the stapyll of Calys, and Batarick his wyfe, the which Richard decissyd
the XX day of Apryle the yere of owre Lord A.MCCCCC and fyve, on whose
soullys Ihu̅ have mercy Amen for charitie.”
The Barrows were an old and notable family, one of them was Master of
the Rolls and Keeper of the Great Seal, 1485. They were long settled at
Winthorpe, and in 1670 Isaac Barrow was Bishop of St. Asaph, and his
nephew was well known to history as the Master of Trinity, 1672-1677, and
a celebrated divine.
[Sidenote: WINTHORPE]
One of Robert Palmer’s descendants, Elizabeth of Winthorpe, married
George Sharpe, who was Archbishop of York in 1676, so Winthorpe furnished
a bishop and an archbishop’s wife in the same decade.
William Palmer was apparently part donor of the south porch of Winthorpe,
which is very like those at Addlethorpe and Hogsthorpe, having a gabled
and crocketed parapet carved with graceful flowing foliage; and on the
two stones, lettered in Early English as at Hogsthorpe, are the lines:—
Robert Lungnay and Wyll’ P
alm’: thay payd for thys
God in hys mercy
bryng them to his blys.
Over the east gable of the nave is a sanctus bell-cot, and in the tower
are four good bells, three of which are thus inscribed:—
1. 1604 I sweetly tolling do men call
to taste of meat that feeds the soul.
2. Jesus be our speed.
3. Antonius monet ut Campana bene sonet.
In the west of the south aisle is the well-carved head of the churchyard
cross, of which, as usual, only half of the shaft remains. On the head is
a crucifixion, and on the other side the Virgin and Child. This head was
found in 1910 a mile and a quarter from the church. It closely resembles
that still standing intact at Somersby.
Opposite, in the west end of the north aisle, are two bases of columns
belonging to a former church of the thirteenth century, which church is
first mentioned in the donation of it by William de Kyme to the abbey of
Bardney, 1256.
The registers of the church begin in 1551.
From the foregoing it will be seen how extremely interesting these Marsh
churches are, and these four are not the only ones in this part of the
Marsh, _Croft_ and _Burgh_ being both within three or four miles of
_Winthorpe_. _Theddlethorpe_, north of these, is a finer building, as is
_Burgh-le-Marsh_; but I doubt if any other church has such a wealth of
old carved woodwork as Addlethorpe or Winthorpe. There is, cut on the
south-east angle of Winthorpe tower, a deep horizontal line with the
letters “H.W. 1837.” This indicates the level of high-water mark on the
other side of the sea bank, and as the mark on the tower is eight feet
nine inches from the ground, though the 1837 tide was an exceptionally
high one, it gives some idea of what this part of the Marsh must at times
have been in the days before the Romans made their great embankment. A
plan for improving the drainage of the land at Winthorpe was made as
early as 1367, and a rate was exacted of 1_s._ an acre.
[Sidenote: SKEGNESS HOUSE]
_Skegness_, now, next to Cleethorpes, the best known and most frequented
by excursion “trippers” of all the east coast places, used to be fifty
years ago only a little settlement of fishermen who lived in cabins built
on the strip of ground between the road and the ditches on each side. A
lifeboat shed and an old sea-boat set up on its gunwale for a shelter,
with a seat in it, and a flagstaff close by, used chiefly for signalling
to a collier to come in, were on the sea bank. Behind it was an hotel,
and one thatched house just inside the Roman bank, built by Mr. Edward
Walls about 1780. This was cleverly contrived so that not an inch of
space was wasted anywhere. It was only one room thick, so that from the
same room you could see the sun rise over the sea and set over the Marsh.
It was here that Tennyson saw those “wide-winged sunsets of the misty
marsh” that he speaks of in “The Last Tournament,” and took delight in
their marvellous colouring.
The house rose up from the level behind and below the bank, and the back
door was on the ground floor, with a porch and hinged leaves to shut out
the terrific wind from N. and E. or N. and W. as required, but on the
sea front, access was obtained by a removable plank bridge from the bank
top which landed you on the first floor. Here was the summer home of all
our family—a children’s paradise—when you ran straight out bare-foot on
to the sandy bank and so across the beautiful hard sands and through the
salt-water creeks down to the sea. This at high water was close at hand
with tumbling waves and seething waters, but at low tide, far as eye
could reach was nothing but sand, with the fisherman’s pony and cart, and
his donkey and boy at the other end of the shrimp net, moving slowly
like specks in the distance along the edge of the far-retreating sea.
This enchanting desolation is now the trippers’ play ground, with stalls
and donkeys and swings and sham niggers and a pier and lines of shops.
It must be admitted that it has all its old health-giving breezes, and
also a fine garden and a cricket field and golf links of the very best. A
new line from Lincoln has just been opened (July 1st, 1913), which runs
through Coningsby, New Bolingbroke and Stickney, to join the old loop
line between Eastville and Steeping, and for a shilling fare will bring
thousands from Lincoln, Sheffield and Retford, to have a happy day of
nine hours at what the natives call “Skegsnest.”
We have seen that the Romans had a bank all along this coast to keep
out the sea, and besides their five roads from Lincoln, one of which
went to Horncastle, they had a road from Horncastle to Wainfleet; and a
road, part of which we have noticed, from Ulceby to Burgh and Skegness.
Skegness lies midway between Ingoldmells, which is the most easterly
point of the county, and _Gibraltar Point_, from which the coast sweeps
inland and forms the northern shore of the Wash. Across, on the further
side of this, was the Roman camp at Brancaster (Branodunum), and here
at Skegness there seems to have been a Roman fort which has now been
swallowed up by the sea.
[Sidenote: OLD POTTERIES]
Near Ingoldmells, about fifty years ago, the sea, at low water, laid bare
some Roman potteries, so called, from which the Rev. Edward Elmhirst got
several specimens of what were called “thumb bricks.” These were just
bits of clay the size of sausages, but twice as thick, some as much as
two and a half inches thick and four inches high, which had been squeezed
in the hand, the impress of the fingers and thumb being plainly visible;
the extremities, being more than the hand could take, were rather bigger
than the middle. They were flat enough at each end to stand, and had
doubtless been used to place the pottery on when being burnt in the kiln.
It is more than probable that these potteries were pre-Roman. They are
about a quarter of a mile south of the Ingoldmells outfall drain, and
half way between high and low-water mark. They are only exposed now and
then, and appear to be circular kilns about fifteen feet in diameter,
with walls two feet thick, and now only a foot high. The reason of their
existence is found in a bed of dark clay which underlies all this coast.
The only pot found has been a rough, hand-made jar with rolled edge and
marks of the stick or bone with which the outside had been scraped and
trimmed. Now, doubtless the Romans used the wheel. Moreover, these kilns
are far outside the Roman bank, and not likely, therefore, to be for
Roman use. Tree roots are found in the walls and inside the circle of the
kilns, of the same sort as those of which at one time a perfect forest
existed, the stumps of which are sometimes visible at low tide. At the
time the Romans made their sea bank the sea must have come right over
this forest, so that we may perhaps say that those thumb-bricks bear the
impress of the fingers of the earliest inhabitants of Britain, and are
therefore of extraordinary interest.
On the eastern side of South Lindsey the running out of the roads, from
Burgh and Wainfleet, to the coast always seemed to point to the existence
of some Roman terminus near Skegness. Some years after he had noted this
as probable, the Rev. E. H. R. Tatham, who has made a study of Roman
roads in Lincolnshire, discovered that in the court rolls of the manor of
Ingoldmells, the mention is made of a piece of land called indifferently
in a document dated 1345, “Chesterland,” or “Castelland”; and again
in 1422, four acres of land in “Chesterland” are mentioned as being
surrendered by one William Skalflete (Court Rolls, p. 248), this land
is never mentioned again, and the presumption is that it was swallowed
by the sea. And in 1540 Leland mentions a statement made to him, that
Skegness once had a haven town with a “castle,” but that these had been
“clene consumed and eaten up with the se.”